
Qass. 
Book. 



THE 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY 



FROM ITS EARLIEST DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT DATE, EMBRAC- 
ING ITS PREHISTORIC AND ABORIGINAL PERIODS; ITS PIONEER LIFE ANL 
EXPERIENCES; ITS POLITICAL. SOCIAL, AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS; 
ITS EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT; ITS 
MILITARY EVENTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS, AND 
BIOGRAPHIC MENTION t)F ITS 
HISTORIC CHARACTERS. 



BV 

V Z. F. Smith, 

EX-SUPER>NTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF KENTUCKY. 



THE PRENTICE PRESS: 

(COURIER-JOURNAL JOB PRINTING COMPANY) 
Louis\ ill ■, Ky., 1895. 












/ - '■ ? 



)- 



H 



'sis- 



M-'l 



DSDIGHVDRY, 



VTo THE nqemory of the pioneers of Kentucky, wP\ose stalwart virtues and gallant deeds 
v^ are unsurpassed iq any age or by any people, and who builded the first ten^ple of 
liberty in th^e transrr^oqtaqe wilderness, this h\istory is reverer^tly dedicated. Tl^is tribute 
is offered by a grateful and adnqiriqg eulogist, who deems it a proud nqenrjento of h\is life 
to have been born and reared upoq the soil of the " Dark aqd Bloody Ground," watered 
with tl^e blood of its heroes; and all of whose aqcestors for two generations sleep beside 
th^enri, and under the same sod. A confinqoq citizenship Isolds sacred in thie urn of memory 
thie exalted manhood aqd inqperisl^able fanqe of aq ancestry whio conqnqaqd tl^eir own 
tribute of affection and tf^e admiration of the world, Tf\ese graqd meq aqswered the 
call of Provideqce for a grand work, and, like the chosen of old, aqd for otl^er eqds, 
maqy sealed thieir mission with tl^e blood of nqartyrdom. Tlqeir labors are done; tiqeir 
mission eqded, The world will qot see their like agaiq. 

" Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead ! 

Dear as the blood ye gave ; 
No impious footsteps here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave ; 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While Fame her record keeps. 
Or Honor points the hallovi'ed spot 

Where Valor proudly sleeps. 

" Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone, 
In deathless song shall tell, 
When many a vanished year hath flown. 

The story how ye fell ; 
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's bl 

Nor time's remorseless doom. 
Can dim one ray of holy light 
That gilds your glorious tomb." 

—OHara. 

To the Youth of our Conqmoqwealthi we would as earnestly consecrate tP\is book; thiat 
tlqe virtues of manly courage, of higl^ resolve, and of heroic sacrifice, which aclqieved 
success with our qoble forefatf^ers, may inspire laudable ambition and enqulatioq iq the 
respective spl^eres of life in wl^ich they nqay act. 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACK. 



In view of offering a new history of Kentucky to the interested pubHc 
at this day, the author desires first to express his appreciation of the value 
and merits of the several standard works of this class of literature which 
have appeared at intervals for a century preceding. Filson's brief history 
and map of pioneer Kentucky, in 1784, is the most valuable contribution of 
the kind before the incoming of the present century; and fortunate, in- 
deed, is it for the following generations that both are preserved. Early in 
the nineteenth century, Marshall, McAfee and Butler, learned and able 
men, brought up the history of the Commonwealth successively to the sev- 
eral dates of the publication of their works, and wrote of much that was 
contemporaneous, especially the two former. Messrs. Collins, father and 
son, practically occupy the field for the next half century, and, with great in- 
dustry, research, and ability, have gathered together and compiled an im- 
mense amount of historic matter never before in print. The last enlarged 
issue by Dr. Richard H. Collins, in two 8vo. volumes, forms a cyclopaedia 
of Kentucky history, but not in narrative form. This work has proven of 
inestimable value to the historian of to-day, who has drawn liberally and 
often from the materials of this rich store-house of information. More re- 
cently we have been favored with that admirable treatise, " Kentucky Com- 
monwealth," by Professor Shaler, of Harvard. It does not pretend to be a 
history of Kentucky; but, as a philosophic generalization of that history, it 
is unique, learned, and of great value. All these histories have been liber- 
ally drawn upon. A most appreciable source supplementary to these works 
has been found in the gathered records of the Filson Club, of Louisville, 
an organization containing among its members some of the most learned 
authorities in early cismontane history, and especially that of Kentucky, 
associated together solely to search out and safely place on file all new mat- 
ter that may be found in existence. Besides the Polytechnic library, the 
extensive libraries of Colonel R. T. Durrett and Dr. Richard H. Collins, 
gathered in the last quarter of a century from every antiquarian source in 
America and Europe, have been generously opened to the author. The 
library of Colonel Durrett is the fullest and richest in the world of this class 
of literary treasure. The many thousands of volumes upon its shelves, 
gathered from the book-stalls of Europe during three protracted visits there, 

(V) 



Vi HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and from every available source in this country embrace nearly all that is 
needed in antiquarian historic lore. So prized is this vast collection that the 
offer of an ample fortune in dollars would be no temptation to sell it. Not 
only have the owners offered the use of these treasuries of knowledge, but, 
together with Professor William Chenault, have continuously devoted much 
time and labor to the critical examination of the text before finally going to 
press. On a few specialties requiring the skill of the professionalist, the 
author has laid under contribution several esteemed friends. For the use of 
the paper on education read before the Filson Club, and for contributive 
assistance on the history of jurisprudence in Kentucky, he acknowledges in- 
debtedness to Professor William Chenault, of the Louisville Law School ; to 
Colonel R. T. Durrett, for the material to make the list of the historians of 
Kentucky, embracing the introductory ; to Colonel John Mason Brown, for 
the accQunt of the siege of Bryan's station and the battle of Blue Licks ; to 
Dr. Dudley S. Reynolds, for the early history of medical men and medical 
science in Kentucky ; to Major William J. Davis, for the treatment of the 
geology and soils of Kentucky, and to Professor John R. Procter, for accurate 
geological and geographical information. Acknowledgments are tendered 
for many valuable favors extended from citizens throughout the State. From 
Gayarre's late history of Louisiana, much of the correspondence between 
the Spanish commandants at New Orleans and other Spanish officials and 
General Wilkinson and others involved in the protracted intrigues to seduce 
and detach Kentucky from the Federal Union is reproduced as of peculiar 
historic interest. This correspondence is from the copies on file at Baton 
Rouge, taken by order of the government of Louisiana and with consent of 
Spain from the Archives at Madrid. It officially settles the mooted question 
of Wilkinson's guilt, and has never appeared in previous Kentucky history. 
But we forbear further to enumerate. The multiplied authorities for 
varied and special research in historic information are as ample for an ac- 
curate and complete history of our Commonwealth as are those of any other. 
For the benefit of the reader or student who may in future wish to pursue 
his investigations in this field, we follow this preface with an introductory, 
in which is recited all known histories or historic papers bearing directly or 
indirectly on the events and affairs of Kentucky history. 

THE AUTHOR. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



PART I. — Historians and Histories of Kentucky. 

The writers of histories of Kentucky! 
to the present time have not been 
numerous ; and with the exception of 
Marshall and Collins, their works have 
not been elaborate. Frequent occa- 
sions have been found during the prog- 
ress of this work to refer to anterior 
histories, and if some have been omit- 
ted that ought to have been noticed, 
a formal enumeration of previous au- 
thors and their works will not only 
supply the omissions, but afford to 
some extent the much-needed bibliog- 
raphy of Kentucky histories and the 
sources of Kentucky history. We 
know of no collection of Kentucky 
books so complete as that of Colonel 
R. T. Durrett — there is none such 
extant — to all of which free access John filson, 

was given in the preparation of the work now offered to the public ; and 
from the books in his library the following list, preserving the chronolog- 
ical order of their publication, has been made : 

1784. 

First — "The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, and 
an essay toward the topography and natural history of that important coun- 
try; to which is added an appendix containing, first, the adventures of Col- 
onel Daniel Boon, one of the first settlers, comprehending every important 
occurrence in the political history of that province ; second, the minutes of 
the Piankashaw council, held at Post Saint Vincent's, April 15, 1784; third, 
an account of the Indian nations inhabiting within the limits of the thirteen 
United States, their manners and customs, and reflections on their origin ; 
fourth, the stages and distances between Philadelphia and the Falls of the 

(vii) 




Viu HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Ohio, from Pittsburgh to Pensacola, and several other places — the whole illus- 
trated by a new and accurate map of Kentucke and the country adjoining, 
drawn from actual surveys. By John Filson." ^^'ilmington : Printed by James 
Adams, 1784. 

This was the first attempt at a history of Kentucky, and its title-page has 
been copied in full. It is a small octavo volume of one hundred and eighteen 
pages, and has become so excessively rare that a single copy has been sold 
for one hundred and fifty dollars. It has been several times republished, 
and some of the reprints have also become very rare. The following edi- 
tions maybe enumerated: M. Parraud, Paris, 1785; Ludwig Heinrich Bron- 
ner, Frankfort, 1785; John Stockdale, London, 1793 ; Samuel Campbell, two 
volumes, New York, 1793; Gilbert Imlay, in his topographical description 
of the Western territory of North America, London, 1793 and 1797. 

But little was known of the author of this first history of Kentucky until 
the Filson Club, in 1884, just one hundred years after the appearance of 
his work, published an account of his life and writings. He was born in 
Chester county, Pennsylvania, about 1747, and came to Kentucky possibly 
as early as 1782. He was certainly here in 1783, writing his history and 
preparing his map of Kentucky. In September, 1788, while prospecting to 
establish Losantiville, now Cincinnati, he disappeared in the Miami woods, 
and was never afterward seen. He was supposed to have been killed by 
the Indians on the ist of October. He left a sketch of the Illinois country, 
and several other manuscripts, which have never been published. 

1786. 

Second — "The Discovery, Purchase, and Settlement of the Country of 
Kentuckie." By Alexander Fitzroy, 8vo. , pp. 15. London, 1786. 

Nothing is known of the author of this little work, even more rare than 
that of Filson. It was evidently compiled from Filson, and the author 
was probably one of the numerous speculators, both in this country and in 
Europe, at that date engaged in buying and selling Kentucky lands. 

1792. 

Third — "A Description of Kentucky in North America." 8vo., pp. 124. 
Printed in November, 1792. 

Neither the author's name nor the place of publication appears upon the 
title-page, but the work is known to have been written by Harry Toulmin, 
and printed in London. Mr. Toulmin was born in England in 1740, and 
was a Baptist minister by profession, but decidedly inclined to Unitarianism. 
He was president of Transylvania University in 1794-95, and secretary of 
state under Governor Garrard. In 1802, he published a collection of the 
laws of Kentucky, and in 1804, in connection with James Blair, a review 
of the criminal laws, in three volumes. He finally moved to Alabama, where 
he was appointed L^nited States district judge, and died in 181 5. 



INTRODUCTORY. IX 

1792. 

Fourth — "A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North 
America." By Gilbert Imlay. 8vo. , pjx 247. London, 1792. 

Mr. Imlay was born in New Jersey, and was a captain in the rebel army 
during the revolution. In 1784, he was appointed a deputy surveyor under 
George May, at Louisville. His work was enlarged to four hundred and 
fifty-five pages, and reprinted at London in 1793, and also at New York, 
the same year, in two volumes, i2mo., pp. 260 and 204. Again, in 1797, 
it was still further enlarged — Svo., pp. 626 — and reprinted at London. He 
was also the author of the ''Emigrants, or the History of an Exiled Fam- 
ily," in three volumes, i2mo., printed at London in 1793. In after years, 
he became connected with the celebrated Mary WoUstonecraft, whose sad 
letters show him to have been unworthy of even the kind of trust that gifted 
but unfortunate woman reposed in him. 

1806. 

Fifth — "Political Transactions in and concerning Kentucky." By Will- 
iam Littell. Svo., pp. 66. Frankfort, 1806. 

Mr. Littell was a lawyer by profession, and the author of law collections 
now rare and valuable. The first of these was "Principles of Law and 
Equity," which appeared at Frankfort in 1808. In 1809, he began his Laws 
of Kentucky, which extended to five volumes, the last in 181 9. In 1822, 
he published, in connection with Jacob Swigert, a digest of the Kentucky 
statutes, in two volumes. In 1823, appeared the first volume of his reports 
of the decisions of the Court of Appeals, which extended to five volumes. 
He also published a sixth volume of select cases. To these publications he 
added "Festoons of Fancy," a collection of poems, and a large contribution 
to the newspapers of the day. His numerous publications do not seem to 
have brought him fortune, and he died at Frankfort in 1S24, leaving prop- 
erty requiring a special act of the Legislature, approved January 6, 1825, to 
make the assets meet the debts. 

1807. 

Sixth — "The General and Natural History of Kentucky." By Robert B. 
McAfee. 

This history is in manuscript and was never published. It was written 
between the years 1S04 and 1807. General McAfee was the author of sev- 
eral other works, hereafter to be mentioned in their proper place. He was 
born in Mercer county, in 1784, and died there in 1849. ^^^ 18 10, he was 
elected to the Legislature, and from that date until about four years before 
his death he was almost constantly in public service. He was a soldier in 
the war of 1812, and a historian of the conflict. In 1S54, he was elected 
lieutenant-governor, and in 1833, appointed charge d'affairs to the republic 
of Colombia. 



X HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

I8l2. 

Seventh — " The History of Kentucky." By Humphrey Marshall. 8vo., 
pp. 407. Frankfort, 181 2. 

This work was published by Mr. Marshall as the first of two volumes, 
but the second of the edition never appeared. In 1824, he published at 
Frankfort, a rewritten and enlarged work in two volumes, 8vo., pp. 474 
and 524, which was the first elaborate history of the State. He was a Vir- 
ginian by birth, and came to Kentucky at the early date of 1780. He 
therefore lived through nearly the entire period about which he wrote, and 
had it not been for the fierce political conflicts in which he engaged, and the 
color they gave to the portraits he sketched of opponents, his work would 
have been accepted by posterity with a credence worthy of its great ability. 
He was a member of the convention which effected the separation of Ken- 
tucky from Virginia, and repeatedly in the Kentucky Legislature. In 1795, 
he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served until 1801. He 
was a constant contributor to the newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlet 
literature of his day, and in 18 10, started, as editor and proprietor, the 
American Republic, at Frankfort. He died in 1842, at the age of fourscore 
and two. 

1824. 

Eighth — " Ancient History, or Annals of Kentucky." By C. S. Rafi- 
nesque. 8vo., pp. 39. Frankfort, 1824. 

The author of this work was a native of Turkey, born' near Constanti- 
nople, in 1784. In 1819, he came to Kentucky and was made professor of 
sciences in Transylvania University. In 1825, he left this State, and finally 
settled in Philadelphia, where he died in 1840. He was more of a scientist 
than historian, and, in fact, distinguished himself as a botanist, geologist, 
conchologist, philologist, geographer, ethnographer, paleontologist, etc. He 
published a number of learned treatises. 

X827. 

Ninth — "Notes on Kentucky." By John Bradford. Lexington, Ky., 
1826-29. 

These were a series of articles, originally published in the Kentucky Ga- 
zette, at Lexington, beginning with No. i, August 25, 1826, and ending 
with No. 62, January 9, 1829. John Bradford was born in Virginia in 1749, 
and came to Kentucky in 1779. In 1787, he established the Kentucky Ga- 
zette, at Lexington, and issued the first number August nth, on a half sheet 
of coarse printing paper, ten and a half by seventeen inches. He died 
while sheriff of Fayette county, the last of March, 1830. 

1832. 

Tenth — "Sketches of Western Adventure." By John A. McClung. 
i2mo., pp. 360. Maysville, 1832. 



INTRODUCTORY. xi 

Subsequent editions of this work were published at Philadelphia, Cincin- 
nati, and Dayton; and in 1S72, an enlarged edition, 8vo., pp. 398, with a 
likeness and biography of the author, was published at Covington by Richard 
H. Collins & Co. Mr. McClung was born in Mason county in 1804, and 
when he reached manhood became a Presbyterian minister. In 1830, he 
published, through Carey & Lea, of Philadelphia, a novel, entided "Cam- 
den," a story of the revolutionary war, and was the author of the outline 
history of Kentucky that appeared in the work of the elder Collins in 1847. 
In 1857, he was sensibly failing, and while on a tour for health he lost his 
life in the river, near the falls of Niagara. On the 6th of August, 1857, his 
clothes Avere found on the landing at Schlosser, above the falls, and on the 
loth his body was rescued from the eddy, near the mouth of the river below 
the cataract. It was supposed that while bathing he was borne away by 
the current and swept over the falls. 

1834. 

Eleventh — "The History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky." By 
Mann Butler. 8vo., pp. 396. Louisville, 1834. 

A second and enlarged edition of this work, 8vo., pp. 551, was pub- 
lished in Cincinnati in 1836. Mr. Butler was born in Maryland in 1784, 
and moved to Kentucky in 1806. He came to this State for the purpose of 
practicing law, but soon gave up the bar for the school-room, and was an 
eminent educator here for nearly forty years. His writings outside of his 
history of Kentucky were numerous, and principally of an historic character. 
The most important of them are mentioned in their appropriate place in 
this article. In 1845, he removed to St. Louis and lost his life in 1852, 
in the great disaster of the falling of the Gasconade bridge on the Pacific 
railroad. 

1847. 

Twelfth — " Historical Sketches of Kentucky." By Lewis Collins. Large 
Svo., pp. 560. Maysville, 1847. 

Judge Collins was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, in 1797, and died 
at Lexington in 1870. He was editor and proprietor of the Maysville Eagle 
from 1820 to the publication of his history, a period of nearly thirty years, 
during which time there appeared in his colurnns many valuable historic 
articles. Not the least important of these were reprints of the "Notes on 
Kentucky," which John Bradford contributed to the Kentucky Gazette. In 
185 1, he was made judge of the Mason County Court, and held this office 
until 1854. 

1852. 

Thirteenth— " The History of Kentucky." By T. S. Arthur and W. H. 
Carpenter. T2mo. , pp. 316. Philadelphia, 1S52. 

Mr. Arthur, a well-known writer of fiction, was born in New York in 1809. 
In 1852, in connection with Mr. Carpenter, he prepared this history of Ken- 



xu 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




tucky, which was published by Lippincott, 

Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia, as the 

first of what was known as the "Cabinet 

Histories of the States." Most of the 

States of that date were embraced in the 

series. 

1872* 

Fourteenth — "A History of Ken- 
tucky." By William B. Allen. 8vo., pp. 
449. Louisville, 1872. 

Colonel Allen, a native Kentuckian, 
was born near Greensburg in 1803. He 
was a lawyer by profession and at one time 
a member of the Legislature. In 1859, 
he published the "Kentucky Officers' 
Guide." 

R c J H 1874. 

Fifteenth — " Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky." History of 
Kentucky, by Richard H. Collins, two volumes, large 8vo., pp. 683 and 
804. Covington, 1874. 

The author of this, the most elaborate and valuable history of Kentucky 
yet published, was born in IMaysville in 1824. He is a lawyer by profes- 
sion, and successfully practiced at the Cincinnati bar for eleven years, but 
has since devoted most of his time to literary and historic pursuits. He was 
editor of the Maysville Eagle for about ten years, and the establisher and 
publisher of the Danville Review in 1861. His contributions to the news- 
papers and periodicals of his day have been many ; and while yet in the 
prime of life, he died in 1889, at the home of a daughter in Missouri, 
whom he was visiting. 

x884« 

Sixteenth — " Filson Club Publications, No. i." The life and writings of 
John Filson, the first historian of Kentucky. By R. T. Durrett, 4to., pp. 
132. Louisville, 1884. 

This work, though designed as a biography, is here placed among the 
histories of the State, because of the new matter from original sources it 
added to the Kentucky narrative and the first map of the district, which it 
rescued from destruction. Colonel Durrett, the author, was born in Henry 
county in 1824, and, although a lawyer by profession, has always been led 
by his tastes into literary, historic, and antiquarian studies. He was editor 
of the Louisville Courier in 1858-59, and ever since he left college has been 
a contributor of both prose and verse to the newspapers and periodicals of 
the day. \\\ 18S0, he began a series of historic articles in the Courier- 
Journal, which have at intervals been continued in this and other papers 
and magazines. His last contribution was to the Southern Bivouac on the 



INTRODUCTORY. 



>^ 



1 




COLONEL R. T. DURRETT. 



Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, 
beginning with the March number for 
1886. He has the largest private library 
in the State, and of Kentucky books the 
most complete collection ever gathered to- 
gether. 

Seventeenth — " American Common- 
wealths." Kentucky a pioneer Common- 
wealth. By N. S. Shaler, i2mo., pp. 433. 
Boston, 1885. 

The author of the above work is a na- 
tive Kentuckian, and bears a distinguished 
reputation as a scientist. He was State 
geologist of Kentucky from 1873 ^^ 1880, 
and is now professor of paleontology in 
Harvard University. This work is one of 
a series to embrace the different States of the Union, of which several have 
already been issued. 

Eighteenth — Z. F. Smith, author of the present "History of Kentucky," 
was born in Henry county, Kentucky, at the homestead farm of his mater- 
nal grandparents, Joseph Dupuy and Ann Peay, who moved from Virginia 
and settled there about 1795. His paternal grandparents. Captain Jesse 
Smith and Joanna Pendleton, moved out from Virginia about the same time 
and settled three miles north-east of Danville, Kentucky, near Dick's river. 
His mother, Mildred Dupuy, was a direct descendant of the old Huguenot 
refugee, Bartholomew Dupuy, a captain of the king's guard, who fought his 
way out of the bloody massacre which followed the revocation of the edict 
of Nantes by Louis the Fourteenth in 1685, and, with his young bride be- 
hind him, fled on horseback to the sea coast and escaped to Virginia; and 
from him were descended the Dupuys, the Trabues, the Caldwells, the Pitt- 
mans, the Thomassons, the Owens, the Brannins, the Majors, the Mc- 
Clures, and other families numerous in Kentucky and in the South and 
West. The author's father, Zachariah Smith, born near Danville in 1799, 
was a descendant of the Pendletons of Virginia and an old Virginia family 
of Smiths of German origin. He died within five months after marriage, 
and the issue was a posthumous child, the subject of this sketch. The widow 
and mother never married again. Z. F. Smith was educated in the country 
and town schools of the vicinity, and completed his studies at Bacon Col- 
lege. He engaged in farming and stock-raising in early manhood ; during 
the war period successfully conducted Henry College, at Newcastle, as its 
president; was elected and served four years as superintendent of public in- 
struction for Kentucky; was the originator and successful promoter of the 
Cumberland & Ohio Railroad Company, and president of the same four 
years ; was several years associated and interested in the construction of rail- 



XIV illSTORV OF KENTUCKY. 

roads in Texas ; was four years manager for a department of the publishing 
house of D. Appleton & Co., of New York, and engaged since May, 1885, 
in writing the "History of Kentucky." From his earUest manhood, Mr. 
Smith has devoted much of his time zealously to the causes of education 
and religion. As a ruling and teaching elder in his church ; as one of the 
founders and promoters, and for twelve years the president, of the Kentucky 
Christian Education Society ; as a curator, since its incorporation, of Ken- 
tucky University ; by his writings and addresses and in other ways, he has 
given much of his life and labors to the public. In 1852, Mr. Smith was 
married to Miss Sue, daughter of William S. Helm, Esq., of Shelby county, 
who bore him eight children, four of whom are living. In 1890, he was 
again married to Miss Anna M. Pittman, of Louisville. 



PART II. —Other Works Containing Kentucky History. 

The foregoing list embraces the works of eighteen authors during a 
period of one hundred and two years, from Filson in 1784 to Smith in 1886. 
There are numerous other works, however, which, although they can not be 
classed as Kentucky histories, yet contain important parts of Kentucky his- 
tory. There are histories of counties, cities, religious denominations, so- 
cieties, and associations; there are biographies of citizens and sketches of 
pursuits ; there are books of travel, fiction, literature, science, law, medi- 
cine, and miscellanies ; and there are even histories of other States and 
countries which contain historic facts essential to the complete Kentucky 
narrative. More of these books have been found in the library of Colonel 
Durrett than in any other collection or in all other collections, and an al- 
phabetical list of the most important of them is here apended, with a repe- 
tition of the histories already given : 

Abbott, John S. C; Life of Dauiel Boone. New York: 1872. 

Albach, J^Miies ; Annals of the West. Pittsburgh : 1857. 

Allen, William B.; A History of Kentucky. Svo., pp. 449. Louisville : 1S72. 

American Ant^c^uarian Society, Transactions and Collections of, Volume L 

Worce^er, re20. 
American Archives, fourth and fifth series, and American State Papers, Indian 

Affairs, two volumes. 
American Museum : 1787-92. 

American Pioneer, two volumes. Cincinnati : 1842-43. 
Arthur, T. S., and Carpenter, W. H.; The History of Kentucky. i2mo., pp. 316. 

Philadelphia : 1852. 
Asbury, Rev. Francis; Journal, threie volumes. New York : 1821. 
Asplund, John ; Register of the Baptist Denomination to 1790. 
Atherton, William ; Narrative of the Sufferings, etc., of the Army Under General 

Winchester. Frankfort : 1842. 
Atwater, Caleb ; Tour to Prairie du Chien. Cincinnati : 1829. 
Baldwin, Thomas; Narrative of the IMassacre bj' the Savages, etc. New York : 

1835- 



INTRODUCTORY. XV 

Barre, W. L.; Writings aud Speeches of Thomas F. INIarshall. Cincinnati: 1858. 

Beauchamp, Jeroboam ; Confession, etc. Bloomfield : 1825. 

Beecher, Lyman C; Plea for the West. Cincinnati : 183S. 

Benedict, David ; A General Histor}' of the Baptist Denomination in America. 
New York ; i860. 

Bishop, Robert H.; Outline of the History of the Church in Kentucky. Lexing- 
ton : 1824. 

Bogart, W. H.; Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky. New York : 1856. 

Bradbury, John ; Travels in America. Liverpool : 1817. 

Bradford, John ; Notes on Kentucky. Kentucky Gazette from August 25, 1826, to 
January 9, 1829. 

Brackenridge, H. M.; History of the Late War. Philadelphia: 1839. 

Brackenridge, H. H.; Recollections of Persons and Places in the West. Philadel- 
phia : 1868. 

Breckinridge, W. C. P.; Address at the Centennial of Breckinridge County. 
Frankfort : 1882. 

Brown, John Mason ; Oration at the Centennial of the Battle of the Blue Licks. 
Frankfort: 1882. 

Brown, Samuel R.; Western Gazetteer. Auburn : 1817. 

Brown, Samuel R.; An Authentic History of the Second War for Independence, 
two volumes. Auburn : 1815. 

Bryan, Daniel; Mountain Muse, or Adventures of Daniel Boone. Harrisonburg: 
1813. 

Burk, John ; The History of Virginia. Petersburg : 1804-5. 

Burnaby, Andrew ; Travels Through the Middle Settlements of Amierica in 
1759-60. London: 1798. 

Burnet, Jacob ; Notes on the Northwest Territory. Cincinnati : 1847. 

Butler, Mann ; Appeal from the Misrepresentations of James Hall. Frankfort : 

1837- 
Butler, Maun ; A Series of Historic Articles in the Western Messenger. Louis- 
ville; 1835-38. 
Butler, Mann ; History of the Ohio Valley, in the Western Journal. St. Louis : 

Volumes IX to XIV. 
Butler, Mann ; Sketch of Louisville in Directory of 1832. 
Butler, Mann; The History of the Commonwealth of Kentuck}-. 8vo., pp. 396. 

Louisville : 1834. 
Butler, Mann ; The History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Second edition, 

enlarged to 551 pages. Cincinnati: 1836. 
Calendar of Virginia State Papers, five volumes. Richmond: 1S75-S5. 
Caldwell, Charles ; Discourse on Rev. Horace Holly. Boston : 1828. 
Callot, General. Voyage dans I'Amerique Septeutrionale, two volumes. Paris : 

1826. 
Campbell, Charles; History of Virginia. Philadelphia: i860. 
Campbell, J. W.; History of Virginia. Petersburg: 1813. 
Campbell, Rev. John P.; Antiquities of Kentucky. Chillicothe: 1815. 
Carlton, Robert; The New Purchase. New Albany: 1855. 
Carpenter, T.; Trial of Aaron Burr, three volumes. Washington : 1807. 
Carver, John ; Travels Through the Interior Part of North America. Loudon : 

1778. 
Casseday, Ben ; History of Louisville. Louisville : 1852. 
Cathcart, William ; The Baptist Encyclopedia. Philadelphia: 1881. 



XVI HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Charlevoix, P. F. H.; History of New France, six volumes. New York: l866. 
■ Chenault, William; The Early History of Madison County. 1882. 

Cist, Charles; Cincinnati Miscellany, two volumes. Cincinnati: 1S44-45. 

Clark, George Rogers; Illinois Campaign. Cincinnati: 1869. 

Clay, Henry ; Life and Speeches, two volumes. Philadelphia : i860. 

Cleland, Rev. Thomas ; Historj' of the Cumberland Presbyterians. Lexington; 
1823. 

Collins, Lewis; Historical Sketches of Kentucky. Large 8vo., pp. 560. Mays- 
ville: 1847. 

Collins, Richard H. ; History of Kentucky. Two volumes, large Svo., pp. 683 and 
804. Covington : 1874. 

Collins, Richard H.; Additional Sketches of Western Adventure, pp. 64 — bound 
up with McClung's Sketches, etc. Covington : 1872. 

Collins, Richard H.; First Settlement of Cincinnati. Cincinnati Commercial: 
April 8, 1877. 

Collins, Richard H.; First Settlement of Lexington, Ky. The Age, Louisville; 
April 19, 1879. 

Collins, Richard H.; The Taylor Family in Kentucky. The Age, Louisville: 
May 3, 1879. 

Collins, Richard H.; Braddock's Defeat, or Battle of the Monongahela. Louis- 
ville Monthly Magazine : June, 1879. 

Collins, Richard H.; Siege of Bryan's Station. Louisville Courier-Journal: 
August 18, 1882. 

Collins, Richard H.; Battle of the Blue Licks. Louisville Courier-Journal : 
August 20, 1882. 

Coleman, Mrs. Chapman; Life of John J. Crittenden, two volumes. Philadel- 
phia: 1871. 

Colton, Calvin ; Private Correspondence of Henry Claj'. Cincinnati: 1855. 

Colton, Calvin ; Life and Speeches of Henry Clay, two volumes. New York : 1856. 

Coxe, Daniel : A Description of the English Province of Carolina. Loudon : 
1727. 

Craig, Neville B.; The Olden Time, two volumes. Pittsburgh: 1846. 

Craik, Rev. James ; Historical Sketches of Christ Church. Louisville: 1862. 

Cramer, Zadoc ; The Navigator. Pittsburgh: 1817. 

Crevecoeur, Hector St. John ; Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain, three volumes. 
Paris: 1787. 

Cuming, F.; A Tour in Ohio and Kentucky. Pittsburgh : 1823. 

Cumings, Samuel ; The Western Pilot. Cincinnati: 1S29, etc. 

Dana, E.; Geographical Sketches of the Western Countr}^ Cincinnati: 1819. 

Darnell, Elias ; Journal of Hardships, etc., of Kentucky Volunteers. Philadel- 
phia: 1854. 

Daveiss, Joseph Hamilton ; View of the President's Conduct. Frankfort : 1807. 

Daveiss, Joseph Hamilton ; Sketch of Bill for Uniform Militia. Frankfort: 1810. 

Daveiss, Maria L.; History of Mercer and Boyle Counties. Harrodsburg: 1885. 

Davidson, Robert: History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky. New York: 
1847. 

Davidson, Robert ; Trip to Mammoth Cave. Lexington: 1840. 

Davis, Matthew L.; Memoirs of Aaron Burr, two volumes. New York: 1838. 

Dawson, Moses ; Life of General Harrison. Cincinnati: 1824. 

Day, Sherman ; Historical Collections of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : 1843. 

Deering, Richard ; Louisville in 1849. 



INTRODUCTORY. XVU 

DeHass, Wills ; History of the Early Settlement of West Virginia. Wheeling: 

1851. 
Desha, Isaac B.; Trial of, for the Murder of Francis Baker. Lexington : 1825. 
Dillon, John B.; History of the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory. 

Indianapolis : 1854. 
Dillon, John B.; Kistorj- of Indiana. Indianapolis: 1859. 

Doddridge, Joseph ; Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of Virginia. Wells- 
burg : 1824. 
Downing, Major Jack ; Dife of Andrew Jackson. Philadelphia: 1834. 
Drake, Benjamin ; Life of Black Hawk. Cincinnati: 1846. 
Drake, Benjamin; Life of Tecumseh. Cincinnati: 1841. 
Drake, Daniel ; Pioneer Life in Kentucky. Cincinnati: 1870. 
Duke, Basil W.; History of Morgan's Cavalry. Cincinnati: 1867. 
Durrett, R. T.; Articles on Kentucky History in Courier-Journal: 1880-85. 
Durrett, R. T.; Battle of the Blue Licks. Louisville Commercial : August 19, 1882. 
Durrett, R. T.; Life and Writings of John Filson. Quarto, pp. 132. Louisville and 

Cincinnati : 1884. 
Durrett, R. T. ; The Kentucky Resolutions of 179S and 1799. Southern Bivouac: 

March, 1886, etc. 
Edwards, Ninian ; History of Illinois. Springfield : 1870. 
Ellet, Elizabeth F. ; Pioneer Women of the West. Philadelphia: 1873. 
Elliott, Jonathan ; Debates in the Several State Conventions, four volumes, 

Washington : 1836. 
Elliott, Jonathan ; The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. 

Washington : 1832. 
Espy, Josiah ; Tour in Kentucky and Ohio. Cincinnati: 1871. 
Evangelical Record and Western Review. Lexington: 1812. 
Evans, Lewis ; Analysis and Map of Middle British Colonies in North America. 

Philadelphia: 1755. 
Faux, W.; Memorable Days in America. London : 1823. 
Fearon, H. W.; Sketches of America. London : 1818. 
Filson, John ; The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucky. Small 

8vo., pp. 118. Wilmington : 1784. Reprinted at Paris, France, and Frank- 

fort-on-Main, 1785; New York, 1793; and London, 1793 and 1797. 
Finley, Alexander; History of Russellville and Logan County. Russellville: 

' 1878-79. 
Fitzroy, Alexander ; The Discovery, Purchase, and Settlement of Kentucky. 8vo., 

pp. 15. Loudon: 1786. 
Flint, Timothy ; The Personal Recollections of James O. Pattie. Cincinnati: 1831. 
Flint, Timothy ; Memoir of Daniel Boone. Cincinnati: 1837. 
Flint, Timothy; Geography and History of Western States. Cincinnati: 1828. 
Flint, Timothy ; Recollections of Mississippi Valle3\ Boston : 1826. 
Foote, William H.; Sketches of Virginia, two volumes. Philadelphia: 1850. 
Ford, S. H.; History of Kentucky Baptists. A series of articles in Christian 

Repository ; 1856-58. 
Ford, Thomas ; History of Illinois. Chicago : 1854. 
Frost, John ; Pictorial History of Mexico. Philadelphia : 1849. 
Frost, John ; Pioneer History of the West. Boston : 1859. 
Gayarre, Charles ; French, Spanish and American Domination in Louisiana, three 

volumes. New York : 1866. 
Griffin, G. W.; Memoir of Charles Todd. Philadelphia : 1873. 



XVIU HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Grisworld, J. Rufus ; Biographical Annual. New York, 1841. 

Hale, John P.; Facts and Incidents not Heretofore Published About Daniel Boone. 

Charleston, W. Va. (no date). 
Hall, James; Sketches of Histor)-, etc., in the West, two volumes. Philadelphia: 

1835. 
Hall, James; Romance of Western History. Cincinnati: 1857. 
Hall, James; Legends of the West. Philadelphia: 1833. 
Hall, James; Sketches of the West. Cincinnati: 1837. 
Hall, James; Statistics of the West. Cincinnati: 1837. 
Hall, Captain Basil ; Travels in America. Philadelphia: 1829. 
Hamilton, John C, Narrative of the Circumstances which Led to His Trial and 

Execution for the Murder of John P. Sanderson. 1818. 
Hardin, Martin D.; Reports of Cases in the Court of Appeals. Frankfort: 1810. 
Hartley, Cecil B.; Life of Daniel Boone. Philadelphia : 1865. 
Harvey, Henry ; History of the vShawauees. Cincinnati : 1S55. 
Haywood, John ; The Civil and Political Histor}' of Tennessee. Knoxville: 1823. 
Haywood, John ; The Natural and Aboriginal History' of Tennessee. Nashville : 

1823. 
Hazard, Samuel: Register of Pennsylvania. 1828-35. 

Heckwelder, John ; Mission of the United Brethren. Philadelphia: 1820. 
Heckwelder, John ; Manners and Customs of Indians. Philadelphia : 1881. 
Hennepin, Louis ; Description de la Louisiane. Paris: 16S3. 
Henning, William Waller ; Statutes at Large of Virginia, thirteen volumes. 1619- 

1792. 
Hickman, William ; His Autobiograpliy. Manuscript: 1828^ 
Hildreth, J. P. ; Pioneer History. Cincinnati: 1848^ 
Hodgman&Co. ; Kentucky Gazetteer. Louisville: 1865. 
Howe, Henry ; Historical Collections of Ohio. Cincinnati : 1848. 
Hughes, James ; Reports of Cases in Court of Appeals. Lexington : 1803. 
Humphrey, E. P.; Memoir of Thomas Cleland. Cincinnati: 1859. 
Hutchins, Thomas ; A Topographical Description of Virginia, etc. London : 1778. 
Hutchins, Thomas ; A Historical Narrative of West Florida. Philadelphia : 1784. 
Imlay, Gilbert ; A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North 

America. Svo., pp. 247. London : 1792. Enlarged and republished in 

New York, in two volumes, 1793, and in London in 1793 and 1797. 
Inter-State Publishing Company ; History of Daviess County. Chicago: 1883. 
Jackson, Andrew; Letters about Bribery and Corruption. Portsmouth: 1827. 
Jeflferson, Thomas ; Notes on Virginia. London: 1787. 
Joblin & Co.; Louisville, Past and Present. Louisville: 1875. 
Johnston, William Preston; The Life of Albert Sidney Johnston. New York: 

1878. 
Johnson, Rossiter; A History of the War of 1812. New York : 1882. 
Johnson, Richard M.; Biography of. Boston: 1834. 
Jones, Mary K.; History of Campbell County. Newport: 1861. 
Kentuckiau in New York, two volumes. New York : 1834. 
Kentucky ; Acts of the Legislature, Journals of the Senate and House, and 

Decisions of the Court of Appeals from the Beginning of the Government, 

in 1792. 
Kentucky ; Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. 

Kentucky ; Debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1849. 
Kentucky ; Biographical Encyclopedia of Cincinnati : 1878. 



INTRODUCTORY. XIX 

Kentucky; Geological Survey, David Dale Owen, four volumes: 1856-61; N. S. 
Shaler, five volumes: 1876-80; John R. Procter, three volumes: 1884. 

Kentucky; Its Resources, etc., two volumes. Frankfort: 1878-79. 

Kentucky ; Reports of Committees and Superintendents of Common Schools, 
1822-85. 

Kircheval, Samuel ; A History of the Valley of Virginia. Winchester: 1833. 

Lahontan, le Baron de ; Memoirs de I'Amerique, three volumes. A la Haye : 
1708. 

Littell, William ; Political Transactions in and concerning Kentucky. 8vo., pp. 
66. Frankfort : 1806. 

Littell, William ; Laws of Kentucky, five volumes. Frankfort : 1809-19. 

Liun, F. A.; Life of Dr. Lewis F. Linn. New York : 1857. 

Lloyd, James T.; Steamboat Directory. Cincinnati: 1856. 

Lossing, Benjamin J.; Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, two volumes. New 
York: 1855. 

Louisville ; Collections of Ordinances, from 1S23 ; Directories from 1832 ; and 
Municipal Reports, from 1866. 

Marshall, Humphrey ; The History of Kentucky. 8vo., pp. 407. Frankfort: 1812. 
Enlarged and republished in two volumes, 8vo., pp. 474 and 524, at Frank- 
fort, in 1824. 

Magruder, Allen B.; Reflections on the Cession of Louisiana. Lexington : 1803. 

McAfee, Robert B.; History of the Late War of the Western Country. Lexing- 
ton : 1816. 

McAfee, Robert B.; The History' of the Rise and Progress of the First Settle- 
ment on Salt River and Establishment of the New Providence Church. 
Manuscript. 

McAfee, Robert B.; The Life and Times of Robert R. McAfee, written by himself. 
Manuscript. 

McAfee, Robert B.; The General and Natural History of Kentucky. Manuscript. 

McBride, James ; Pioneer Biography, two volumes. Cincinnati : 1869. 

McClung, John A.; Sketches of Western Adventure. i2mo., pp. 360. Maysville : 
1832. Republished at Philadelphia, 1832; Cincinnati, 1836; and Dayton, 
1847; and enlarged and republished at Covington, by Richard H. Collins & 
Co., 1872. 

McDonald, John ; Biographical Sketches of Massie, Boone, Kenton, etc. Cincin- 
nati : 1838. 

McKnight, Charles ; Our Western Border. Philadelphia ; 1876. 

McMurtrie, H.; Sketches of Louisville and its Environs. Louisyille : 1819. 

McNemar, Richard ; History of the Kentucky Revival. Cincinnati: 1808. 

McSherry, James; History of Maryland. Baltimore: 1849. 

Meade, Bishop; Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, two volumes. 
Philadelphia: 1878. 

Meeker, N. C; Life in the West. New York : 1868. 

Melish,John; Travels Through the United States. London: 1818. 

Metcalf, Samuel L. ; A Collection of vSome of the Most Interesting Narratives. 
Lexington: 1821. 

Michaux, F. A.; Travels to the West of the Alleghany Mountains. London: 1805. 

Milburu, William H.; Pioneers and Preachers of the Mississippi Valley. New 
York: i860. 

Monette, John W.; History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the 
Mississippi, two volumes. New York : 1846. 



XX HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Monroe, Thomas B.; Keutucky vState Register. Louisville: 1852. 

Morehead, James T.; An Address in Commemoration of the First Settlement of 
Kentucky. Frankfort: 1840. 

Morris, Robert; History of Freemasonry in Kentucky. Louisville: 1859. 

Morse, Jedediah ; American Gazetteer. Boston: 1797. 

Morse, Jedediah ; American Geography, two volumes. Boston : 1805. 

New York Colonial Documents. 

Newspapers : The Gazette and Reporter, of Lexington ; the Mirror, of Washing- 
ton ; the Palladium, Argus, and Commonwealth, of Frankfort ; the Eagle, 
of Maysville ; the Farmers' Library, Gazette, Public Advertiser, Focus, 
Journal, Courier, Newsletter, and Courier-Journal, of Louisville. 

Newton, L H.; History of the Panhandle. Wheeling: 1879. 

Nicholas, George ; A Letter to His Friend in Virginia. Lexington : 1798. 

Nicholas, George ; Correspondence with Robert C. Harper. Lexington : 1799. 

Ohio Valley Historical Series, published by Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati. 

Ohio Historical and Philosophical Society Publications. 

Palmer, John ; Journal of Travels in the United States. London : 1818. 

Parkman, Frances ; LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West. Boston : 1879. 

Peck, John M.; Gazetteer of Illinois. Jacksonville: 1834. 

Peck, John M.; Life of Daniel Boone. Boston: 1845. 

Peck, John M.; Perkins' Annals of the West. St. Louis : 1850. 

Pennsylvania Archives and Colonial Records. 

Perkins, James A.; Annals of the West. Cincinnati: 1846. 

Perrin, William Henry ; History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Coun- 
ties. Chicago: 1882. 

Perrin, William Henry ; History of Fa^'ette County. Chicago : 1882. 

Peyton, Lewis ; History of Augusta Count)-, Virginia. Staunton : 1882. 

Pioneer Life in the West. Philadelphia: 1858. 

Pittman, Philip ; The Present State of the European Settlements on the Missis- 
sippi. London : 1770. 

Pownall, T.; A Topographical Description of the Middle Colonies of North 
America. London: 1776. 

Pratz, M. le Page du; The History of Louisiana. London : 1774. 

Prentice, George D.; Biography of Henry Clay. New York: 1831. 

Price, W. T.; Without Scrip or Purse. Louisville : 1883. 

Pritts, J.; Memoir of Olden-time Border Life. Abingdon: 1S49. 

Proud, Robert ; History of Pennsylvania, two volumes. Philadelphia: 1797. 

Putnam, A, W.; History of Middle Tennessee. Nashville: 1859. 

Rafinesque, C. S.; Ancient Historj^ or Annals of Kentucky. 8vo., pp. 39. Frank- 
fort : 1824. 

Ramsay, J. G. M.; Annals of Tennessee. Charleston: 1853. 

Ranck, George W.; History of Lexington. Cincinnati : 1872. 

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson ; Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies from the 
Papers of Thomas Jefferson, four volumes. Charlottesville : 1829. 

Redford, A. H.; History of Methodism in Kentuck}^ three volumes. Nashville: 
1868. 

Redford, A. H.; Western Cavaliers. Nashville : 1876. 

Reid, Richard; Historical Sketches of Montgomery County. Mount Sterling:. 
X882. 

Reinterment of Scott, Barry, and Ballard. Frankfort : 1855. 

Reynolds, John ; History of Illinois. Belleville : 1S52. 



INTRODUCTORY. XXI 

Robertson, David ; Trial of Burr, two volumes. Philadelphia : iSoS. 

Robertson, George ; Scrap Book. Lexington: 1855. 

Rowan, John ; Report on the Conduct of the Judges of the Court of Appeals and 

Response of Judges. Frankfort : 1824. 
Sabine, Lorenzo ; Notes on Duelling. Boston: 1859. 

Saffell, W. T. R. ; Records of the Revolutionary War. New York : 1858. 
Safford, William H.; The Life of Harman Blenuerhasset. Chillicothe : 1850. 
Salmon's Geography. London: 1785. 

Semple, Robert B.; A History of the Baptists in Virginia. Richmond: i8io. 
Senour, F.; Morgan and His Captors. Cincinnati : 1865. 
ShafFner, Tal. P.; State Register. Louisville: 1847. 
Slialer, N. S. ; Kentucky a Pioneer Commonwealth. i2mo., pp. 433. Boston: 

1885. 
Sharp, L.J. ; Vindication of Solomon P. Sharp. Frankfort: 1S27. 
Smith, Colonel James ; An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in His Life. 

Lexington : 1799. 
Smith, Colonel James ; A Treatise on Indian Wars. Paris : 1812. 
Smith, Rev. James; Three Journeys from Virginia to Kentucky in 1785, 1795 and 

1797. Manuscript. 
Smith, Captain John ; The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of, two 

volumes. Richmond : 1819. 
Smith, Rev. Joseph ; Old Redstone. Philadelphia: 1854. 
Smith, M.; A Complete History of the Late War. Lexington: 1816. 
Smith, Oliver H.; Early Indiana Trials. Cincinnati : 1858. 
Smith, Thomas Marshall ; Legends of the War of Independence. Louisville : 

1855. 

Smith, Z. F. ; History of Kentucky. Large 8vo., pp. 850. Louisville: 1886. 

Smyth, J. F. D.; A Tour in the United States of America, two volumes. London: 
1784. 

Southern Tales and Sketches. Philadelphia : 1853. 

Spalding, M. J.; Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky. Louis- 
ville : 1844. 

Spalding, M. J.; Life of Right Rev. Benedict Joseph Flaget. Louisville : 1852. 

Spirit of '76. Frankfort: 1826. 

Speed, Thomas ; The Wilderness Road, or Early Routes of Travel to Kentucky. 
Louisville : 1885. 

Spencer, John J.; Histor}- of the Baptists of Kentucky, two volumes. Cincinnati: 
1886. 

Spencer, John J.; Life of Thomas J. Fisher. Louisville: 1866. 

Squier, E. G., and E. H. Davis; Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Vallej^ 
Washington : 1848. 

Stamper, Rev. Jonathan ; Autumn Leaves — A Series of Articles on Pioneer Life, 
in Home Circle: 1855-56. 

Stith, William ; The History of the Discovery and Settlement of Virginia. Lon- 
don : 1753. 

Stone, William L.; Life of Joseph Brant, two volumes. New York : 1838. 

Taylor, John ; A History of Ten Baptist Churches. Frankfort: 1823. 

Taylor, James W.; History of Ohio. Cincinnati: 1854. 

Tevis, Julia ; Sixty Years in the School-room. Cincinnati : 1878. 

Toulmin, Harry ; Laws of Kentucky. Frankfort : 1802. 

Toulmin, Harry ; A Description of Kentucky. 8vo., pp. 124. London: 1792. 



Xxii HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

Trumbull, Heury : ludiau Wars. Boston : 1830. 

Van Ness, W. P.; Charges Against Aaron Burr : 1804. 

Virginia Colonial Records. Richmond : 1874. 

Volne\', C. F.; View of the Climate and Soil of the United States. London : 1804. 

Voyage au Kantoukey. Paris: 1821. 

Ward, Matt F.; Trial for the Murder of W. H. G. Butler. Louisville and New 
\'ork: 1854. 

Warker's Geography and Gazetteer. Dublin : 1797. 

Webb, Ben J.; Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky. Louisville : 1884. 

Weir, James ; Lonz Powers, or the Regulators, two volumes. Philadelphia : 1850. 

Weld, Isaac; Travels in America, two volumes. London: 1799. 

Wheeler, John H.; Historical Sketches of North Carolina. Philadelphia: 1851. 

Wilkersou, Judge, etc.; Trial for Murder of John Rothwell, etc. Louisville : 1839. 

Wilkinson, General James; Memoirs of My Life and Times, three volumes. 
Philadelphia : 1816. 

Williams, L- A. & Co. ; History of the Ohio Falls Cities, two volumes. Cleveland : 
1882. 

Wiuterbotham, William; An Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and Topo- 
graphical View of the United States, four volumes. London • 1799. 

Withers, Alexander; Chronicles of Border War. Clarksburg: 1831. 

Woods, H.; The History of the Presbyterian Controversy. Louisville: 1843. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Chapter I i 

Chapter II 3 

Chapter III 6 

Chapter IV lo 

Chapter V 17 

Chapter VI 29 

Chapter VII 33 

Chapter VIII 44 

Chapter IX 54 

Chapter X 65 

Chapter XI 80 

Chapter XII 95 

Chapter XIII 113 

Chapter XIV 134 

Chapter XV 156 

Chapter XVI 173 

Chapter XVII 188 



PAGE. 

Chapter XVIII 230 

Chapter XIX 260 

Chapter XX 299 

Chapter XXI 333 

Chapter XXII 369 

Chapter XXIII 417 

Chapter XXIV 463 

Chapter XXV 502 

Chapter XXVI 560 

Chapter XXVII 593 

Chapter XXVIII 638 

Chapter XXIX 668 

Chapter XXX 713 

Chapter XXXI 749 

Chapter XXXII 783 

Chapter XXXIII 809 

Appendix 828 



(xxiii) 



INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Anderson, General Robt. . 600 



Badin, Rev. Stephen 
Ballard, Bland . . . 
Barry, William T. . . 
Bartholomew, Prof. W. H 
Bascom, Bishop Henry 
Beckner, Judge Wm. M 

Beatty, Dr. O 

Bell, Hon. Joshua F. . 
Beck, Hon. James B. . 
Black Hoof (Indian) . 
Blanton, Dr. L- H. . . 
Blackburn, Gov. t,. P. . 
Blackburn, Hon. J. C. S. 
Boyle, General Jerry T. 
Breckinridge, Gen. J. C 
Breck, Rev. R. L. - . 
Bracken, Rev. T. H. . . 
Bradley, Hon. W. O. . 
Brown, Gov. John Young 
Buckner, General S. B. 

Campbell, Alexander . 
Campbell, Dr. D. R. . . 
Carlisle, Hon. John G. 
Clay, General Green . 

Clay, Henry 

Clay, Cassius M. . . . 
Collins, Dr. Richard H. 



Davis, Jefferson .... 
Davis, Major William J 
Daveiss, Col. Joseph H. 
Dudley, Elder Thomas P 
Dudley, Benj. W., M. D. 
Durham, Judge Milton J 
Durrett, Colonel R. T. 



• 407 

• 237 
. 692 
, 807 

• 550 

• 7" 
•547 
.588 

762 

• 15 

• 545 

• 774 

• 771 
. 624 

• 597 

• 543 

• 541 

■ 767 
. 803 
.615 

■ 529 

• 537 
. 766 

• 475 
.516 

• 559 
. xii 

• 603 

• 715 
.458 

• 527 

• 729 

• 770 
.xiii 



PAGE. 

Estill, Colonel Sam .... 175 

Estill Monument 189 

Estill, Monk (colored) . . 194 
Evans, Hon. Walter . . . 775 

Filson, John vii 

Green, Dr. Norvin .... 769 

Hale, H. S 801 

Hardin, Ben 693 

Haldeman, Walter N. . . . 746 
Hanson, Gen. Roger W. . 644 
Headley, Captain John W., 804 
Helm, Governor John L- • 760 
Helm, Gen. Ben Hardin . 661 

Hendrick, W. J 805 

Hickman, Rev. William . 403 

Irvine, William 191 

Johnson, Colonel R. M . . 482 
Johnson, Elder John T. . . 531 
Johnston, General A. S. . . 618 

Kavanaugh, Bishop H. . . 551 

Kelly, R. M 748 

Knott, Gov. J. Proctor . . 777 

Leslie, Gov. P. H 765 

Lincoln, Abraham . . . 602 
Lindsay, Judge William • 768 

Lognn, Emmet G 747 

Logan, President Jas. V. . 544 

Marshall, Gen. H 630 

Marshall, Thomas F. . . . 517 
McCreary, Gov. James B. . 772 



PAGE. 

McDowell, Samuel .... 301 
McDowell, Dr. Ephraim . 727 

Menefee, R. H 518 

Morgan, Gen. John H. . . 621 

Norman, Hon. Luke C. . . 806 
Norwood, Hon. Chas. J. . . 800 

Patterson, Col. Robert . . 75 

Prentice, George D 745 

Preston, Gen. Wm 756 

Prophet (Indian) 457 

Procter, Prof. John R. . . 714 



Rout, Rev. Gelon H. 



542 



Shelby, Gov. Isaac .... 398 
Smith, Elder John .... 332 
Smith, Z. F. . . Frontispiece 
Spalding, Bishop M. J. . . 548 
Stevenson, Gov. John W. . 761 
Stockade at Lexington . . 149 

Taylor, General James . . 467 
Taylor, Mrs. Gen. James . 467 
Taylor, Gen. Zachary . . 576 
Tecumseh (Indian) .... 483 
Thompson, Capt. Fid P. . . 802 

Uncle Dick Hart (colored), 50 

Vaughn, Rev. William . . 528 

Watterson, Henry .... 747 
Willis, Hon. Albert .S. . . 773 

Young, Rev. John C. . . . 546 



(xxiv) 



GENERAL INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Abolition party 558 

Adair, General John . 313, 429 

At New Orleans 488 

Governor 509 

Adams, Captain George. .261 
Adams chosen president . 343 
Adams, John Q., election . 514 
Address to Virginia Assem- 
bly 289 

Admission of Kentucky to 
the Union, first con- 
vention 246 

Proceedings of second 
and third conventions, 247 
Adoption of whites by 

Indians 371 

Agriculture, Bureau of . . 801 
Agricultural and Mechan- 
ical College 553 

Alarming invasion .... 199 
Alien and sedition laws . 345 

Allen, William xii 

Allen, Colonel John L. . 471 

Allen, General 480 

Allen, Chilton 510 

Ambassadors and consuls 

to foreign countries . . 841 
Anderson, Mrs. John, 

scalped 308 

Anderson, General Rob- 
ert 600, 606 

Anecdotes of Indians . . .387 
Animals, prehistoric . 24, 723 
A. P. A. party ; revival of 

Knownothingism . . . 823 
Appalachian Mountains . 3 

Archaeology 723 

Arrests of citizens, 1863-4 . 625 
Assassination of President 

Lincoln 750 

Asylums, insane and other 

unfortunates 802 

Attorney-generals of Ken- 
tucky 840 

Augusta College 552 

Aztecs 12 

Backwood life and habits, 184 

Badin, Father 407 

Ballard, Captain Bland, 237, 471 
Ballard, Judge Bland . . .611 
Banks, United States . . . 513 
Banks, of Kentucky . . 509 

Commonwealth 509 

Bank charters multiplied, 

519. 588 
Baptist Church in Ken- 
tucky 403, 526 

Theological seminary . 528 

Barbour, Colonel 480 

Barlow, Thomas H., in- 
ventor 505 

Barnett, Colonel James . . 261 
Barnett, Mrs. Hannah, 

scalped 308^' 

Barry, William T., 

485, 510, 515, 692 
Bartholomew, W. H. . . . 807 
Bascomb, Rev. H. D. ... 550 

Beargrass 20 

Stations 158, 177 

Beatty. President O. . . . 547 

Beck, James B 762 

Beckner, W. M 711 



PAGE. 

Bedinger, Major, at Chil- 

licothe 145, 309 

Bell, Joshua F 588 

Ben, a brave negro . . . 179 
Benliam, Captain Robert, 

massacre of 152 

Marvelous escape .... 154 
Bessemer steel process, in- 
vented in Kentucky . 505 
Bethel College ... 527 

Bibliography of Kentucky ,xiv 

Big Joe Logston 327 

Big Bone, graveyard of 

mammoths 24, 147 

Big Sandy 4 

Big Gate, chief 119 

Black Fish, chief, killed, 

84, 145 
Black Hoof, Indian ... 13 

Blackburn, J. C. S 771 

Blackburn, Gov. Luke P. . 774 
Bland, Mrs., escape of . . 217 
Blanton, L. H., Chancellor 
Central University . . 545 

Bledsoe, Jesse 456 

" Bloody Monday " in Lou- 
isville 580 

Blue Licks, capture salt- 
makers 95 

Battle 211 

Boards, battle of the . . .240 
" Boom " in speculative 
pro pe r t i es, 1886-91. 

Panic follows 811 

Boone, Daniel 4 

In Kentucky .... 5, 7, 9 
Party abandons move 
to Kentucky, 1773; at- 
tacked. . .' 17 

Warns in settlers .... 31 
Founds Boonesborough, 36 

Married 40 

In Kentucky, 1760, 40, 48, 88 

Captured 95 

Adopted 97 

Escape 99 

Robbed 168 

Brother killed . . .168,171 

Exile 257 

Death 356, 464 

Boone, Jemima, captured, 70 

Boone, Squire 6, 48 

Station 150, 177 

Squire, in Kentucky, 

1769 6, 9 

Boone, George .... 170, 171 
Boonesborough founded, 37 

Sieges 88, 100 

Strategy 102 

Boone's Trace 37. 62 

Boiling Spring ... 29, 48 
Boundary line of Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee 

settled 508 

Bowling Greeii evacuated, 616 
Bowman, Captain Jos., 

106, 107 

Narrative 137 

Bowman, Colonel John, 92, 143 

Bowman, John B 533 

Boyd. Lynn 587 

Boyle, John . . . 171,261,510 

Bovle, General J. T 624 

Bracken, Rev. T. A. . . 541 

(xxv) 



PAGE. 

Bradford, John . . x, 276, 312 

Bradley, W. 767 

Bragg, General Braxton, in 

Kentucky' 632 

Bramlette, Gov. Thos. E. . 647 
Breathitt, Governor John . 554 
Breck, Rev. R. L. . . . 543 
Breckinridge, John . 346,423 
Breckinridge, Robert . . 311 
Breckinridge, Rev. R. J. . 702 
Breckinridge, John C. . . 597 
Brent, Major, killed . . . 648 
British .... 81, 104, 134, 

272, 263, 304, 325, 439, 473. 485 
Broadhead, Daniel ... 235 

Brown, James 29,311 

Brown, Hon. John, 

274, 278, 280, 282, 311, 451 
Brown, John Mason . . 197, 606 
Brown, Gov. John Y. . . .803 
Administration, 1891-5, 

803-5, 824 

Bryan's Station 150 

Siege of 195 

Bryan, William . . . 150, 179 

Bryan, Alex 150 

Buena Vista, battle of . . .567 
Buell, Gen D. C. . . 613, 633 
Buckner, Gov. Simon B. . .615 

Administration 785 

Bulger, John 143 

Bulger, Major Ed 220 

Bullitt, Capt. Thomas, in 
Kentucky, 1773 .... 18 
Surveys site of Louis- 
ville 21 

Bullitt, Alex S 34 

Bullock, James M '^54 

Bullock, Judge Wm. F. . 698 
Burbridge, General, cruel- 
ties in Kentucky . . . 654 
Burr, Aaron, conspiracy . 425 
Butler, Gen. Wm. O. . . . 564 
Byrd, Col., captures Rud- 
dell and Martin . . . 161 
Returns to Canada . . .162 

Cahokia, Fort 109 

Caldwell, General . . . . 480 
Callaway, Richard . . 48, 62 
Daughters, captive ... 70 
Delegates-elect . 93, 104, 172 
Callaway, Colonel . . . 480 
Call for Kentucky troops . 466 

Calmes, General 480 

Calvin, Captain 307 

Campbell, Alexander . . . 529 
Campbell, Dr. D. R. ... 527 
Campbell, Colonel John . 158 
Campaign against the 

British 4^8 

Campaign of Mexico . . .574 

Canal at the Falls 523 

Caperton, Adam .... 171 
Capital of Kentucky .311,312 
Capital location settled 815 
Capture and rescue of 
Misses Callaway and 

Boone 70 

Carlisle, John G 766 

Carondelet, Baron, in- 
trigue 446 

Carpet-baggers . . . 761, 767 
Catawba Indians . . . 10, 12 



XXVI 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



PAGE. 

Centennial of Federal Gov- 
ernment 788 

Of Kentucky 806 

Of the Discovery of 

America 806 

Centre College .... 545 
Central University .... 540 
Chapman's, David, adven- 
tures 330 

Charlevoix's history and 

map, 1744 13 

Chenoca, Indian name for 

Kentucky 36, 52 

Chenault, Colonel, killed . 648 
Chenovveth, Richard ... 125 
Cherokee Indians . . 10, 15 
Sell Kentucky, 1775 ... 35 
Chillicothe, Indian town, 

18, 33, 96 

Battle 143, 164, 223 

Chickasaws attack Fort 

Jefferson 160 

Christmas, first, in Louis- 
ville 120 

Chiles, Colonel 480 

Choctaw Indians 10 

Christian Church 528 

Christian, Col.Wni., killed, 265 
Churches in Kentucky; 

first in Louisville . . 414 
Chief Justices of Ken- 
tucky 839 

Cincinnati, first tree felled, 

1774 29 

First survey 298 

Cities of Kentucky, graded 

1892 815 

Civil war, 1861-5 593 

Claims of European na- 
tions 232 

Clark, Geo. Rogers, life of, 65 
Mission of . . . 68, 87, 93 
N. W. campaign .... 105 
Wonderful march . . . .136 
Captures Vincennes, 

141, 174, 222, 268, 320 

His death 360 

Clarke, Judge 510 

Clarke, Governor James .554 
Clay, Gen. Green . 171, 475, 478 

Clay, Cassius M 566 

Clay, Henry . 368, 4S3. 514, 582 
Clay, Henry, Jr., killed in 

Mexico 564 

Clay county, first settlers, 172 
Clear Creek, Shelby coun- 
ty, 'Squire Boone's sta- 
tion 150 

Coal and iron of Kentucky, 

798, 801, 855, 859 

Cooke, William 48 

Cook, Mrs., heroic defend- 
er . .... 307 

Colbert, Chief of Chicka- 
saws 160 

Collins, Lewis x 

Collins, Richard H xii 

Collins, Josiah and Elijah, 149 
College of the Bible . . . 535 
Common schools, first law, 698 

Contest 704 

Reforms 708 

Confederate generals and 

congressmen, 1861-5 . . 843 
Connelly, Dr. John, Tory . 158 

British agent 439 

Constitution of the U. S. 

adopted 264 

Of Kentucky, 1792 . . . 302 

Second 364 

Of 1850 577, 578 

Of 1891 793 

Address to people on . . 794 
Continental money . .149,187 



PAGE. 

Conventions at Danville, 

246, 247, 270, 277, 285, 292, 300 

Confiscation 158 

Coomes, Wm 84 

Corn first raised 6i 

Cornstalk, Chief, begins 

war and defeated, 1774, 30 
Corn Island . . . 106, no, 121 
Corn shellers' battle . . . 127 
Counties of Kentucky, 

1892 833 

Cowan, Jared, killed ... 30 
Courts in Kentucky, 

79.93. 187, 234, 237, 313, 334, 817 
Court and Country parties, 

285, 290 
Court of Appeals reorgan- 
ized 817 

Constitutional Conven- 
tion, iSgi, members of, 847 
Councils at Kaskaskia . . 115 
Cox, Daniel, map, 1654 . . 13 

Cox .Station 225 

Crab Orchard 297 

Craig, Elijah 203 

Crawford, Colonel Wm., 

burned at the stake . . 197 
Crews, David, Station . . . 171 
Crenshaw, Judge B. Mills, 579 
Crepps, Colonel Christian, 

killed 295 

Crist, Henry 295 

Crittenden, Gen. Thos. L-, 606 
Crittenden, John J. . .577,599 
Crittenden, Gen. Geo. B , 613 
Croghan, Major, heroism 

at Sandusky 479 

Crow, John 29 

Ciuelty of Indians .... 389 
Cumberland Presbyte- 
rians 536 

Currency, depreciation of, 187 
Cynthiana, battles of, 623, 650 
Cyclone, destructive, in 

Louisville, 1890 . . . 789 
Cumberland, mountain 
and ri%'er, named ... 3 

Dances, Indian .... 372, 385 

Dances, old-time 123 

Dandridge, Alex S 48 

Daniel, Walker, killed . . 241 

Danville ... 127 

Dark and bloody ground, 

12, 35, 52 
Daveiss, J. Hamilton, 429, 458 
Daveiss', Mrs., heroic act, 226 

Davis, Jefferson 603 

Davis, Wm. J 715 

Davis, Azariah 48 

Delaware Indians 10 

Democratic party, 1892 . . 810 
Desha, General Joseph . . 480 

Governor 511, 513 

Education and roads . .521 
Detroit, prisoners to . . . 97 

Clark's plans 176 

Detroit, plans on, 141, 176, 219 
Destruction of life .... 241 

Dick's river 8 

Divine services first held . 78 
Distress in Kentucky . . .217 
Disaffection in Kentucky, 234 

Dixon, Archibald 578 

Donaldson, Colonel . . . .480 
Donelson, Fort, surrender, 615 
Don Gardoqui, Minister 

of Spain 275, 281 

Douglas, James, visits 
Kentucky, 1773 . . 18, 23 

Returns 1774 30, 48 

Dragging canoe, Cherokee 

chief^ 52 

Drennon, Jacob 21 



PAGE. 

Drennon's Lick, 

21, 61, 62, 75, 295 
Dudley, Major Peter . . . 486 

Dudley, Dr. Ben W 729 

Dudley, Rev. T. P 527 

Dudley's, Colonel, defeat . 477 
Duke, General Basil . . 622 
Dunlap, Mrs., escapes . . 166 
Dunn, Maj., Spanish ag't, 437 
Dunmore, Governor of Vir- 
ginia, treaty with In- 
dians 14 

War , 31 

Treaty 33 

Duquesne, Fort, massacre, 81 

Capture 100 

Duree family massacred . 223 

Durham, M.J 770 

Durrett, Reuben T xii 

Pioneer life in Louis- 
ville 120 

Centennial address . . . 806 
Duvall, Judge Alvin . . .587 
Dwellers, first, of Louis- 
ville 125 

Earthquake, i8n 461 

Eastin, Rev. Aug 254 

Editors of Kentucky . . . 745 
Education, history of, in 

Kentucky 669 

Edwards, John, U. S. Sen- 
ator, 1792 311 

Edwards, Ninian 460 

Election, presidential, 

1892 813 

Elliott, Judge John M. . .611 
Elkhorn Creek .... 30, 61 

Association 404 

Emancipation in K e n - 

tucky 368 

Emancipation proclama- 
tion by Lincoln .... 641 
Emissaries of France . . . 320 
Empire won by Geo. Rog- 
ers Clark 142 

England, war with .... 8i 
Second war with .... 464 
Equalization, State Board 

of 786 

Escheated lands 158 

Estill, Captain James . . . 171 
Battle and death .... 189 

Estill, Sam 171, 175 

Estill, Monk 194 

Estill county settled . . .172 
Evans, Lewis, publishes 

map, 1749 3, 13 

Evans, Walter 775 

Expatriation acts 752 

Expedition, Clark's North- 
western 134 

Falls of Ohio .... 20, 22, no 

Fortified 120 

Life there . . . 121, 143, 157 

Canal for 526 

Father Badin 407 

Fayette county . 170, 225, 247 
Feeble-minded Institute . 803. 
Federal generals, 1861-5 . 84^ 
Federal remuneration for 

slaves 616 

Federal and State Courts 

conflict 514 

Female immigration . . . 183 

Ficklin's letter 13 

Filson,John vii, 9^ 

Map 13 

Field, Colonel E. H. ... 564 
Financial disasters . 520, 588 
Fincastle county, Va., em- 
braced Kentucky ... 25 
Finley, John 4, 5. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



XXVll 



PAGE. 

Fitch, John, inventor, 170, 503 
Fitzroy, Alex, historian . viii 
Floyd, John 

25, 46, 48, 72, 178, 216 

Killed 241 

Floyd's Fork 29? 

Foreign ministers, etc., of 

Kentucky 841 

Forts, settlers 89 

Fourteenth Amendment 

adopted 765 

Frankfort named 165 

France, war with, designs 

ot 232, 319 

Sympathy 322 

Frankfort 165 

Freedman's Bureau .... 755 
Fry, Colonel Cary H. . . . 564 
French Alliance, 

106, 117, 160, 233, 318, 366 
Frenchtowu, victory at . . 471 
Fuqua, Prof. James H. . . 527 

Gaines, Major John P. . . 564 

Gaither, Major 309 

Galaspy, William 59 

Galley armed on the Ohio . 174 

Gano, Rev. John 312 

Gardoqui, Don, 

275. 335,439. 443 
Garfield, President .... 777 
Garrard, Governor James, 341 
Garrard, General T. T. 608 
Gass, Miss Jennie, killed . 189 
Gazette, The Kentucky, 

first paper . .277,283,437 
Genot, French minister . 320 
Geology of Kentucky .714 
Geological survey of the 

State 798 

Georgetown College . . . 526 

Ghent, treaty of 586 

Giltner, Colonel H.S. . . .650 

Girlv, Simon ....... 26 

Bryan's Station, 195, 199, 258 
Gist, Captain Christopher, 
in Kentucky 1757 ■ • 3. '74 

Gist, surveyor 64 

Gist, John 128 

Goodin's Station 183 

Government before State- 
hood 828 

Governors and officers of 

State to 1892 829 

Graham, James 125 

Graham, President Robt. . 535 

Grant, U. S 617 

Graves, Major 471 

Great panic, 1873 ... 772 
Great revival, religious, 

405, 422 
Greathouse, Captain, mas- 
sacred 306 

Green, Norvin 769 

Greenup, Governor Chris- 
topher, elected .... 423 
Greenville, treaty of .334,464 
Grievances of the people 
under corrupt govern- 
ment 812 

Grubbs, Prof. I. B 535 

Guerrillas 653 

Guthrie, James 578 

Haggard, Dr. David B. . . 579 

Haldeman.W. N 746 

Hale, Henry S., State 

Treasurer .... 787, 801 
Haggin, Lieutenant John, 143 
Hamilton, Col., British . .135 
Hammond, Nathan .... 48 
Hancock, Stephen, Sta- 
tion 97, 171 

Hanson, General Roger . . 644 



PAGE. 

"Hard Cider" campaign . 556 
Hardin, Col. John, mur- 
dered 314 

Hardin, Martin D 464 

Hardin, Ben 693 

Hardin county . . . 169, 181 
Hardin, Col. Wm. . . 266,305 
Harlan, Major Silas . . . .221 

Harlan, James 555 

Harlan, Judge John . 773,776 

Harmar s defeat 304 

Harmon, Valentine . . 48 
Harrison, William H., N. 

W. campaign . 457, 469, 480 
Harrison, Fort . . . 469 

Harrison, Governor of Vir- 
ginia, letters to . . 218 
Hart, Nathan . . . 35,50,171 

Killed 223 

Hart, Silas 223 

Hayes, R. B., Pres. U. .S. . 77s 

Haycraft Station 169 

Harrod, Captain James, 
visits Kentucky 1773 . 18 
Again in 1774 . . 29 

Returns for the Dun- 
more War, 

31. 46, 54, 56, 106, 143 
Harrodstown site chosen, 

29> 54, 56, 84 
Attacked .... 86, 128, 206 
Hard labor, treaty, In- 
dian 34 

Headley, John W 804 

Heads of Departments U. 
S. Government from 

Kentucky 844 

Helm, Thomas 169 

Helm, Captain Leonard, 

106, 112, 114, 141 

Helm, Gov. John L 760 

Helm, Gen. Ben Hardin . . 646 
Henderson, Col. Richard. 
Pres. Transfer Com- 
pany 15 

Life o'f 44 

Diary of. . . .37, 46, 50, 169 
Henderson, Sam ... 48, 70 
Henderson, H. A. M. . . . 708 

Hendrick.W. J 805 

Hendricks, burned at 

stake 60 

Henry, Gov. Patrick . 68, 105 

Henrv, Gen.Wm 480 

Herndon, Captain .... 128 
Hickman, Rev. Wm. . . . 403 
Hidalgo, treaty of .... 575 
Higgins Station, attacked, 266 

Hinds, Richard 17a 

Hinton, Evan, 1774 . . 31,15° 
Histories of Kentucky, 

Filson vii 

Fitzroy, Toulmin . . . viii 
Inlay, Littell, Mc.\fee . . ix 
Marshall, Rafinesque, 

Bradford, McClung . . x 
Butler, Collins, Sr., 
Collins, Jr., Arthur. . xi 

Allen, Durrett xii 

Smith xiii 

Hinkson, John 74 

Station 63, 74 

Captured 163 

Hise, Judge Elijah .... 579 
Hite, Abram and Isaac . ■ 

29, 31,48, 54 

Hogan, James . 170 

Hogatoge, Tennessee river, 10 
Holder, Captain John, Sta- 
tion 99, 143, 191 

Defeat i95 

Holley, Rev. Horace, Pres. 

Trans. University . . 727 
Home Guards .... 601, 659 



PAGE. 

Hopkins, General .... 468 

Hospitalities 372 

Hov's Station 191 

Hu'bbell, Captain William, 

boat fight 306 

Hull, surrender of . . . .466 

Hunter's camp 4 

Humphrey, Rev. E. P. . ■ 540 
Hyne Station 169 

Illinois, county made . 93, iii 
Illiteracy in K e n t u c k y, 

1830 695 

Imlay, Gilbert ix 

Immigration, impetus to, 

18, 149, 235 

Indian corn 399 

Indians, none living in 

Kentucky 10 

Legends 11 

Titles to country .... 34 
Military methods .... 76 
Tools of the British . . 81 

Adoption 97, 370 

Councils 113 

Cruelties 198 

Troubles from Tennes- 
see 246 

Treaties 263 

Massacres 303 

Barbarians 314 

Last raid in Kentucky . 331 

Habits 370 

Religious ideas 370 

Anecdotes of 386 

Burning of Crawford . . 388 
Old Fields, Clark Co. . . 13 
War path, lodges, early 

location 13 

Ingles', Mrs. Mary, thrill- 
ing escape 27 

Innes, Harry, 

237, 274,285, 337, 43t> 450 
Insane asylums of Ken- 
tucky 802 

Inventors, great, of Ken- 
tucky 503 

Iroquois Indians, six na- 
tions 14 

" Irrepressible conflict " . 579 
Iron ores, coal and timber 

of Kentucky 799 

Irvine, Captain Wm. ... 191 
Irvine, Captain Christo- 
pher 172, 261, 269 

Jackson's purchase .... 508 
Jackson, General, at New 

Orleans 488 

President 5^5 

Jacobins in Kentucky . . 319 
James I., royal grant ... is 

Jay, John 223 

Treaty denounced . . . 275 
Jewett," Matthew . . .48,287 
Jefferson, Thomas .... 105 

President 418 

Jefferson county, 170, 225, 246 

Jefferson, Fort i59 

Besieged 160 

Johnson, Colonel R. M., 

482, 556 
Johnson, Colonel James. 

479, 482, 484 
Johnson, John T. . . . 484, 53' 
Johnston, General A. S., 

607, 618 
Johnson, George W., 604, 611 
Judges U. S. Supreme 

Court from Kentucky, 845 
Jurisprudence, history of, 

in Kentucky 732 

Under the first consti- 
tution 733 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



PAGE. 

Jurisprudence, under sec- 
ond constitution . . . 736 

Third period 739 

Fourth period 741 

Kaskaskia, capture of . . 107 

Kavanaugh, H. H 551 

vSuperintendent public 

instruction 699 

Kelly, R. M 748 

Kelly, William, inventor 
Bessemer steel proc- 
ess 505 

Kentucky, Histories of, 

vii to xiv 
Bibliography . . xiv to xxi 
Geography, physical 
surface, latitude and 
longitude, river drain- 
age, area, climate, 

^ . . - '■ ''H, 717 

Origin of name .... 2 
First explorers, first 

map 3 

Why " Dark and Bloody 

Ground " 10, 25 

Title to, claimed by Mo- 
hawks, Shawanees and 
Cherokees .... 14, 15 
Surveyor's visit, 1773 . , 18 
Kentucky part of Fin- 
castle county, Va. . . £5 
Settlers in 1774 ... 29, 31 
Purchased by Transyl- 
vania Company .... 35 
First settlers, 1775, 

37. 54, 58, 60 
Counterplot to Transyl- 
vania Company by 

Clark 67, 133 

Kentucky county, 

boundary of 78 

Menaced from British 

post 81 

Clark's expedition 
against the British 

forts 106 

Land laws 146 

Hard winter, 1779-80, 151,157 
Boundary and divided 

into three counties . . 169 
First petition to be a 

State 250 

Court 187 

French and Spanish in- 
trigues . . . 232, 275 
First Constitution, 

303, 336, 433 
First government . . .311 
French emissaries . . . 320 
Treaties with England 

and Spain 335 

Resolutions of 1798 . . . 347 
Religion in Kentucky, 

403, 526 

War 1812-1S .,65 

Northwest campaign . . 469 
At New Orleans .... 486 
Kentucky inventors . . 503 
Jackson's purchase ... 507 
Old and new court issue, 510 
Bankruptcy .... 509, 520 
First railroad in Ken- 
tucky 525 

Mexican war 560 

Knownothingism . . . ,581 
Slavery in Kentucky, 

367, 595 
Sentiment on secession . 598 

Neutrality 608 

Kentucky in the war . . 607 
Bragg's invasion .... 631 
Emancipation procla- 
mation 6^1 



PAGE. 

Kentucky, cruelties of war 

in 654 

Surrender 661 

History of education in 

Kentucky 669 

Geology of 717 

Minerals 721 

Medical science 725 

Kentucky j u r i s p r u - 

dence 732 

Mound builders . . . n, 724 

After the war 750 

Union rule 752 

Democratic rule . . . . 759 
Negro enfranchisement, 

T, ■ r . 766, 773 

Panic of 1873 772 

Superior court created . 777 
New constitution . . 793 
Kentucky before State- 
hood 828 

Kentucky University . . .534 
Kentucky Christian Edu- 
cation Society 536 

Kentucky Wesle'yan Uni- 

^•ersity 553 

Kentucky river called Che- 

noca 36 

Kennedy, Thomas .... 74 
Kennedy, John . . .36, 99, 172 

Others 261 

Kennedy, Peter 182 

Kenton, Simon, 1773 . . . 26^ 



Life of 



59 



Capture 129 

Escape 132, 225 

Poverty and old age . . .361 
Kentuckians governors of 

other States 845 

Kentuckians U. S. sena- 
tors of other States . . 847 
Knott, Gov. J. Proctor . . 777 
Knownothing party . . 581 
Kincaid, Captain Joseph . 220 
Kincheloe Station, mas- 
sacre 216 

King, General 480 

Knott's, Governor J. Proc- 
tor, administration . . 778 
Kuklux 76g 

Lecompte, Charles .... 61 

La grippe 791 

Lancaster, John, capture . 297 

Land laws of Virginia . .146 

Commissions, first ... 148 

Claims, confusion of . . 344 

Grants for schools . . . 679 

Surveys 225, 344 

Langville, on the Wabash, 

destroyed 306 

Leestown Station, near 

Frankfort 73 

Legislature, acts of . . . 784 

First 31,, 334 

Legislature, 1890-9 1-92, 
longest known' . . 813 

Reforms in the laws . . 814 

Leitch's Station 468 

Leslie, Governor Preston 

H • • 765 

Letcher, Governor Robert. 555 
Lewis, General Andrew, 
battle Point Pleasant, 

15, 222 

Lewis, Colonel 471 

Lexington, first visitors 

name it 62 

Fort built 149, 513 

Licking river, settlements 

on 60, 143, 150 

Limestone, now Mays- 

ville .... 60. 306, 331 

Lincoln, Thomas .... .169 



P-^GE. 

Lincoln, Abraham .... 602 
Emancipation procla- 
mation 641 

Re-elected president . .662 

Assassination of ... . 750 

Lincoln county formed . . 170 

Delegates 247 

Lindsey, Captain Joe ... 127 
Killed at Blue Licks . . 211 
Lindsay, Judge Wm. ... 768 
Linn, Captain William, 

120, 177 
Little Mountain, battle of, 
near Mt. Sterling . . . igo 

Littell, Win ix 

Lochabar, treaty of ... . 34 
Logan, General Ben .... 58 

Besieged 90 

Heroism qi 

Wounded, 

93, 104, 143, 168, 215 
Logan, Colonel John . . 99, 266 
Logan, Fort, built .... 58 

Siege 90, 206 

Logan county 169 

Logan, President James 

V 544 

Logan, Emmet G 747 

Logston, Big Joe, battle .327 

Long Hunters 9 

Long Run disasters . . .176 
Loos, Pres't Chas. Louis . 535 

Lottery cabins 29 

Lotteries revoked, 1892-3, 814 
Loughrey's defeat .... 176 

Massacre 176 

Louisiana, purchase of . 421 
Louisville, survey near, 

1773 '. 20 

First fort 106 

Named 126 

Incorporated 159 

First ministers 414 

Site surveyed . . 20, 101, 120 
Growth of; 1885-95 . . 824 

Lynch, David 171,237 

Lythe, Rev. John, first re- 
ligious service . . 47, 413 

McAfee Station attacked . 180 

McAfee, Robert 181 

McAfee, General Robt. B., 

historian . . . ix, loi, 479 
McAfee brothers, James, 
George, and Robert, 
visit Kentucky, 1773 . iS 
At Big Bone and Dren- 

non's Lick 21 

Survey at Frankfort 
reach site McAfee Sta- 
tion ..... 22, 37, 54, 150 
McAdam, inventor of rock 

and gravel roads . . .521 
McBride, Isaac . . . 125, 202 
McClure, adventure of . 255 
McClure, Mrs., captured . 257 
McConnell, captured. 

61, 149, 166 
McClelland, Fort, George- 
town 61 

Siege 77 

McClung, Judge, repealed 

of office 420 

McClung, Rev. John A., 

author x 

McCown, murdered ... 151 
McCreary, Gov. James B. . 772 
McDowell. Sam'l, 237, 281, 301 
At the Thames . . . . 485 
McDowell, Dr. Ephraim . 727 
McGarvey, Pres. John W. . 535 
McGary, Captain Hugh, 

57, 62, 181 
At Blue Licks 211 



GENERAL INDEX. 



PAGK. 

McGary kills old Chief 

Moluntha 269 

McGee's Station 195 

McKee, Colonel W. R., 

killed at Buena Vista, 573 
McKiiiney, fight with wild- 
cat . 242 

McKnitt's massacre . . . 266 

Madison, James 466 

Madison county, organ- 
ized 261 

Madison, Gov. Geo. . 471, 507 
Magoffin, Gov. Beriah, 

587, 600, 627 

Maiden 470 

Evacuated by British . 481 
Malcolm, Rev. Howard . . 527 
Mammoth remains .... 24 

Manly, Rev. Basil 527 

Slason county, first set- 
tlers 59, 60 

Vlarquette, journal and 

map, 1681 13 

Marshall, Colonel Thomas, 

225, 285, 295 
Marshall, Humphrej', his- 
torian X, 285, 340 

Marshall, General Hum- 
phrey 630 

Vlarshall, Judge Thos. A. . 579 
Marshall, Thomas F. . . .517 
Martin Station .... 63, 150 

Captured 161 

Mason county 60 

Maumee campaign , St. 

Clair's defeat 309 

Wayne's expedition . . 318 

Battle of 325 

Campaign, 1812 . . . 469 
Maysville and Lexington 
Turnpike Road Com- 
pany, Jackson's veto . 522 

May, John 223 

Menefee, Richard H. . . . 518 

Meigs, Fort, siege 476 

MethodistChurcli . . 409, 550 
Merrill, Mrs. John, brave 

defense 294 

Metcalfe, Gov. Thomas . . 515 
Mexico, war with, 560, 567, 575 

Miami river 10 

Miami tribe's confedera- 
tion 30, 163 

Military interference after 

the war 754 

Miller, Jas. and Thos. . . 171 
Milligan. Pres. Robert . . 535 
Mills, Judge Benjamin . 510 
Mill Springs, battle of . . 612 
Mineral resources and 

wealth .... 721, 782, 798 
Miro, Spanish command- 
ant at New Orleans, 

277. 433, 446 
Mississiniway, battle of . 470 
Mississippi river, called . 13 

Navigation of 233 

Mohawk, or Iroquois title 

to Kentucky 12 

Treaty with 34 

Monk, Estill, brave negro, 

189, 194 

Montjoy, Colonel 480 

Monterey, capture of, in 

Mexican war 564 

Montgomery, CaptainWill- 
iam and Joseph . . . . 106 
Station attacked .... 167 

Moore, William 48 

Moore party massacred . 258 

Morehead, Gov. Chas. S. . 580 

Morgan, General John S. . 621 

Raid over the Ohio . . . 648 

His death 6=0 



PAGE. 

Morrison, James 149 

Mound builders, nations 

and ruins .... n 

Murfreesboro, battle of . . 643 

Murray, Judge 431 

Muscogee Indians . . .12 
Muter, Judge George, 

184, 274, 285, 340, 452 

National parties in Ken- 
tucky 342 

Naval defense, Clark's . 174 
Navarro, Spanish emis- 
sary 435 

Navigation, slack-water . 523 
Negroes, increase of . . . 558 

Nelson county 247 

Nelson, Fort ' . . . . 126, 158 
Nelson, Gen. Wra . . 603, 6io 
Netherland at Blue Licks . 213 
New England versus Ken- 
tucky's Statehood . . 281 
New Orleans, battle of . . 487 
Nicolas, Geo., 311, 337, 341, 431 
Northwest, Clark's con- 
quest of ; his spies . 93 
Captains Helm, Bowman 
and Harrod recruit 

men 105 

Start from Corn Island . 106 
Land at Massac, and cap- 
ture Kaskaskia .... 107 
Major Bowman captures 

Cahokia 109 

Vincennes surrendered no 
Possession of Illinois . . 112 
Treats with Indians . . 114 
Assassin Meadows . . .117 
Vincennes recaptured by 

British 135 

Northwest, wonderful 

campaign 157 

Retakes Vincennes from 

British 140 

Designs on Detroit fail, 142 
This vast territory won 
from England by 

Clark 142 

Norman, Luke C 806 

Norwood, Charles J. . . . 800 
Nullification, 1S32 . .355,583 

Oconistoto, Cherokee 

chief 36, 52 

Squaw 52 

Ohio Canal Company . . . 523 
Ohio Land Company . . 147 
Old and new court ques- 
tion 510 

Oldham, Colonel 309 

Owen, Bracket 237 

Owen, Colonel Abraham, 

237.457 
Owsley, Governor Wm. . . 510 

Panic, great, in 1893 . . . 820 
Parties, political, in Ken- 
tucky . . . . ' 478 

Painted Stone Station . .150 
Parent settlements of 

Kentuckians 831 

Particular Baptists .... 528 
Patterson, Colonel Robert, 

75, '49. 214 
Patterson, Pres. J. K. . . . 554 

Payne, General 469 

Major Duval 479 

Captain John 479 

Peers, Rev. Benjamin, ad- 
vocates education . . 695 
People's Party . . . 788, 810 
Perry's, O. H", victory on 

Lake Erie . . '. . .481 

Perryville, battle of . . . 635 



PAGE. 

Peace ; end of Revolution, 231 
Philadelphia Centennial 

gifts to Kentucky . . 806 
Pickaway, towns de- 
stroyed 164 

Pickett, Joseph Desha . . 709 
Pioneers of Kentucky, 

I20, 184, 391 
Woes of, 218, 391, 400, 670, 673 

Piqua, Ohio 469 

Pittman Station on Green 

river 150 

Platforms of parties, 1892- 

95 822 

Pluggy, Mingo chief, 

killed 77 

Poague, Colonel 480 

Poague, William, killed, 

62, 126 
Polk, Mrs., capture .... 217 
Polk, James K., President 

in 1845 555 

Politics and parties, 1790 . 273 

1798 346, 418 

1820 509 

1832 552 

i860 596 

Political discontent, 1892 . 809 

1894 821 

Point Pleasant, battle, 1774, 15 

Population, 1890 835 

Powell, Governor L- W. . 579 
Power, Spanish emissary, 

337. 431, 447 
Prehistoric dwellers . 24, 724 
Prentice, George D. . . . 745 
Presbyterian Church . 411,538 
Preston, William, sur- 
veyor Fincastlc 
county, 1773 . . .25 

Preston, General William, 756 

Procter, John R 714 

Proctor, Rev. Joseph . 190, 194 
Prohibition party, 1892 . . 810 
Prominent Kentuckians . 844 
Prophet, Indian leader . . 457 
Provisional (Confederate) 
Government of Ken- 
tucky 844 

Quinn's Bottom massacre, 307 

Rafinesque, Prof. C. S., x, 724 
Railroad, first in Ken- 
tucky 524 

Raison, massacre at . . .4-1 
Randolph, Thomas . . . 216 
Ray, James ... .57, 83, 86 

William, killed 84 

Reading Circle work . . . 819 

Recovery, Fort 325 

Red Hawk, chief, killed . 145 

"Regulators" 762 

" Relief and anti-Relief" 

parlies „ 511 

Religion.? services, first 
in Kentucky . 78, 402, 414 

Republicans 768 

Rennick, Colonel 480 

Repeal of war legislation, 755 
Representatives in U. S. 

Congress, 1792-1895 . . 836 
Republican party, 1892 . . 809 
Resolutions of 1798 . . . 346 
Revenue and taxation, 

1833 355, 785. 816 

Revenue, unwise legisla- 

. . tion 816 

Revivals, great religious, 

1800 422 

Revolution, war of . . 65, 81 

Ended 231 

Reynolds, Aaron . . . . 205 
Richmond, battle of . . . 629 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



PAGE. 

Robertson, Judge George, 510 
Robinson, Camp Dick . . 603 
Robinson, Gov. James F. . 628 
Robinson, Rev. Stewart . 541 
Rocheblave, M., captured, iii 
Rogers, Colonel David, 

massacre 152 

Rogers, Captain John . . 136 
Rogers, Elders Sam and 

John 533 

Rolling Fork, raid .... 308 
Roman Catholics . . 406, 54S 
Rosecrans succeeds Buell,64o 
Rowan, John . . 254, 428, 510 
Royal Spring, now George- 
town 61 

Ruddell's .Station 150 

Captured i6i 

Ruddell, Cai)tain Isaac, 

125, 150 
Rumse}', James, inventor, 504 
Russell, Colonel William, 460 
Russell, Mrs., capture and 

rescue 167 

Russellville Station . . . i6g 

St. Asaph's Fort 57 

Besieged ..... 90, 126 
St. Clair, General, defeat, 

309, 321, 440 
Saline Lick, battle at . . . 266 
Salt makers, capture of . 96 

Saltville, battle of 66i 

Salt River, bloody battle 

of 295 

Sandusky, James and Ja- 
cob 2g 

Station 74 

Sandusky, Fort 470 

Schools, public, first move, 695 

Federal aid 697 

Opposition to 700 

Great reform inaugu- 
rated 706 

School fund contest . . . 705 
School system for colored 

people 766 

School law, 1893-5 817 

Amendments yet needed, 817 
Schools, improvements in, 818 
Libraries and Reading 

Circle work 819 

Science Hill Academy . . 553 

Scioto river 10 

Scott, General . . 304, 305, 325 
Scott, Governor Charles, 

i8o3 456 

Scott and Wilkinson ex- 
pedition 305 

Sebastian, Judge, 

274. 338. 340. 431. 437 
Treats with Spain . . 447 
Second Constitutional 
Convention, 1799 . . . 363 

Secession, war of 594 

Kentucky in 597 

Sedition 236 

Senators, U. S., of Ken- 
tucky, 1792-1892 .... 836 
Separatists, for withdraw- 
al from the U. S. ... 276 
Separate coach bill .... S14 
Settlers, early, 17, 29, 37, 45, S4 
Panic among, 

55,59,61,63, 75 
Seventh Convention for 

Statehood 285, 287 

Shaler, N. S xiii 

Sharp, Stephen G., Treas., 786 

Sharp, Solomon P 510 

Shawanee Indians .... to 
Driven out of Kentucky, 12 
Located on map, 1654 . . 13 
War 1774 14 



PAGE. 

.Shelby, Governor Isaac, 
installed . . . 311, 321, 464 

Shiloh, battle of 617 

.Sieges 89, 100 

Indian methods 76 

Simpson, Judge James . .579 

Sinirall, Colonel 480 

Skeggs family massacred, 294 
Slackwater improvements, 523 
.Slaughter, Colonel Tlios. . 46 
Slaughter, Governor Ga- 
briel 45G, 507 

.Slavery agitation . . 367,641 

Enlistment of 658 

Smith, D. Howard .... 648 
.Smith, Elder John . . . .532 
.Smith, Z. F., historian . . xiii 
Superintendent Public 
Instruction .... 708, 760 
Smith, General Kirby, in 

Kentucky 629 

Smith, Colonel James . . 8i 
Narrative of life among 

the Indians 370 

South, Samuel .... igi, 195 
Southern Presbyterian 

Church 539 

South, John 172 

.Southern Baptist Theolog- 
ical Seminary 527 

Spalding, Bishop M.J. . .548 
Spain's designs on Ken- 
tucky 252, 292 

Spanish archives on in- 
trigue 432, 439, 445 

Spanish intrigues . . . 336 
.Spies on the border .... 87 
To Illinois, by Clark . . 104 
Speakers of Kentucky 
House of Representa- 
tives 840 

Stanton, Henry M., Cen- 
tennial poem . . . 806 
Stanwix treaty, 1768 . . 14, 34 
State boundary, law of . 789 

.State Guards 603 

State finances, 1867 .... 763 

1874 774 

1887 785 

Stature of Kentuckians . 664 
Stephenson family at- 

tacked 307 

Stevenson, Gov. John W. . 761 
Stevenson, Dr. Daniel . . 553 
Stewart, John, in Ken- 
tucky, 1769 5 

Death' 6 

Stockade forts described, 8g 
Stoner, Michael . .31, 60, 74 

Creek 64 

Strikes and riots, 1892-3 : 
results of panic and 
enormous government 
burdens imposed on 

the people 812 

.Strode Station attacked, 

i68, 195 
" .Substitute " brokerage . 652 

Suffrage to all 776 

.Sugar C;imp, battle of . . 84 
Supreme Court appointed, 237 
Supreme Court addressed 

from the bench .... 341 

Surveyors' offices opened . 225 

Sympathy for Indians . . 317 

Superstition of 377 

Tanner's. John, station .171 
Tate.James W., Treasurer, 

defalcation of 786 

Taul, Colonel 480 

Taylor, General Zachary, 

469, 569, 584 
Taylor, General James . . 467 



PAGE. 

Taylor, Mrs. James .... 467 
Taylor, Hancock, in Ken- 
tucky, 1773 25 

Killed, 1774 30 

Tecumseh, Indian chief . 459 

.Slain 483 

Tennessee river called 

Hogatoge 10 

State of Frankland . . . 442 
Tennessee and Kentucky 

boundary so3 

Texas, annexation and 
war with Mexico . 561, 567 

Thames, battle of 482 

Thirteenth amendment . . 664 
Thompson, Major David . 479 
Thompson, Manlius V. . . 555 
Thompson, Capt. Phil B , 564 
Thompson, Ed Porter . . 802 
Tippecanoe, battle of . . 457 
Tilghman. General Lloyd, 603 
Tobac, Indian chief . ". .113 
Todd, Colonel John. 

48, 77, 93. 112, 171, 221 

Todd, Levi 143, 220 

Todd, Robert ...... 220 

Toulmin, Harry 342 

Trabue, Gen. Robert P., 617 
Trace, Boone's .... 36, 171 
Transylvania Company 15 

Leaders 35, 45 

Laws of 48 

Protest to 50, 51 

Annulled by Virginia . . 53 • 
Transylvania .Seminary . 674 
Transylvania Universit3', 

675, 684 

Treaties with Indians for , 

Kentucky .... 14, 33 | 

Of Wataga . 36, 233, 263, 304 I 

With Spain and Eng- ' 

land 335, 446 

Trigg, Colonel Stephen, 

171, 221 

Trigg, Major 485 

Trimble, Major 477 

Trimble, Judge John . . . 512 

Trotter, Colonel 480 

Trueman, Major, captured, 314 

Turnpikes, first built . . 521 

Maysville, vetoed . . . 522 

Twetty, Captain, killed . 37 

Fort 37 

Tyler's Station 237 

" Uncle Dick " Hart, first 
slave in Kentuckj' . . 50 

United States Constitu- 
tion adopted 265 

Vaughn, Rev. Wm 528 

Vincennes captitred . . .110 

Surrenders again to the 
British 135 

Recaptured by Clark . 141 
Virginia, chartered rights, 

15, 243 

Cedes Northwest terri- 
tory to I'nited .States, 244 

Favors petition of Ken- 
tucky 262 

Wallace, Caleb . 237, 341, 437 . 
Walker, Dr., in Kentucky, ' 

1750-58 3. 169 

Walker, General 485 

Ward, Captain James, boat 

fight 256 

Warfield, Captain Ben . . 476 
War, second, with Eng- 
land 465 

With France 366 

With Mexico 561 

Of Secession . . 595 to 667 



GENERAL INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Wataga, Fort, treaty of, 

15, 3°4 

Warren, Thomas 171 

Washington's survey on 

Big Sandy 18 

Washington, Fort . .304,308 

Wataga, treaty of 36 

Indian prophecy . . .41, 52 
Watterson, Henry .... 747 
Wayne, General Anthony, 

321. 325 

Wells, Colonel 469 

West, Edward, inventor of 

model steamboat, 1794, 504 
Wheat, Judge Zachariah, 5S7 
White, Dr. James, in Span- 
ish intrigue . . . 443 
White, Prof. Henry H. . . 535 
White Oak Station at- 
tacked 223 

■Whitley, Colonel Wni., 

74. 257, 3*6 



PAGE. 

Whitley killed 484 

Whitsitt, Dr. W. H. . . . 527 
Whittaker, Col. Aquilla . 177 
Wickersham, Adam and 

Jacob, fight 1^5 

Wickliffe, Robert ... .510 
Wickliffe, Charles A. . . . 555 
Wilderness road, Boone's, 

36, 171 
Wildcat Mountain, battle 

of .... 608 

Wiley, James 29 

Williams, General John 

S 574,661 

Williams, Colonel .... 4S0 
Wilkinson, General James, 

251, 277, 286, 433, 448 
Winchester, General . . . 469 

Defeat 472 

Winter, the hard, in 1778, 

.151, 156 
Women, pioneer, first, 62, 183 



PAGE. 

Women, property rights 
made same as men's, 

1892 815 

Heroism 203, 307 

Wood, Samuel '. 48 

Woolfoid, General Frank 
L 606, 624 

Woods, Mrs., heroic de- 
fense 179 

Worthington, Captain Ed- 
ward 77, 125 

Wyandotte Indians .... lo 

Yadkin river, Boone's 

home 40 

Yager, with Kenton ... 59 

Yates, Brown L 172 

Y'oung, Rev. John C. . . . 546 
Yunt, George 150 

Zollicoffer, General . 608, 612 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTEE I. 



The geographical position of Kentucky 
to the United States. 

Its physical surface and navigable river 
drainage. 

Latitude and longitude. 

Superficial area. 



Its climatic and hygienic conditions. 

Importance to England, France, and 
Spain, as a key to internal navigation. 

Mystery and romance of its earliest his- 
tory. 

Origin of the name, Kentucky. 



Kentucky lies centrally in the broad union of States, bordered on the 
west by the Mississippi river, and north by the Ohio. Its Virginia boundary 
line on the east, and its Tennessee line on the south, have their intersection 
at a point in the extreme south-east, where the Cumberland mountains reach 
an altitude of sixteen hundred feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico. 
The two great river-mains mentioned receive from this territorial surface the 
tributary waters of Big Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Salt, Green, Cumber- 
land, and Tennessee rivers. From the lofty apex and slopes of this mount- 
ain range, which crosses south-eastern Kentucky, begin the sources of these 
tributary rivers which go to form the internal-drainage system of the State. 
Diverging from the region of their common origin, but each finding a north- 
westerly course, all finally empty into the gentle and beautiful Ohio, and are 
borne southward by the channel of the great and turbid Mississippi. 

The physical map of Kentucky, therefore, presents to the eye a picture 
of rugged mountains in the East and South-east, gradually subsiding westward 
into hills and knobs, and these fading out within one hundred miles into the 
undulating lands and plains of Central and West Kentucky ; and the latter 
bordered at last by the fertile valleys of the Mississippi and lower Ohio rivers, 
which lie at an altitude of but three hundred feet above the gulf level. From 
the highest mountain apex of East Kentucky, therefore, there is a steady 
decline of altitude for four hundred miles, to the valleys of lowest depression 
on the extreme west, of over thirteen hundred feet. 

This territorial area lies within latitude 36° 30' to 39° 6' north, and longi- 
tude 82° 2' to 89° 40' west. With unequal sides and irregular boundaries, 
it is most difficult to reduce or define its superficial contents with accuracy. 
It embraces about forty thousand square miles. It possesses that mean of 
climate which is mild and temperate, without being enervating, while its 
atmosphere is usually healthy and inspiring. 



2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In its earliest history, when the title to the great valley of the Mississippi 
was mainly in question between Spain, France, and England, the position of 
Kentucky derived unusual importance from the fact that its shores com- 
manded the navigation of the Mississippi river for over fifty miles, and of 
the Ohio for seven hundred. Each of the seven tributary rivers mentioned 
before is also navigable for a greater or less distance; and altogether this 
area contains a navigable river frontage of over four thousand miles, exceed- 
ing that of any other State within the Union. 

Whether we speculate and wonder amid the numerous remains of a pre- 
historic people who dwelt here in fabled mystery during the silent centuries 
of an unwritten epoch; or contemplate the traditions and destinies of the 
aboriginal savages who were found with title and possession ; or recount 
the attending perils and heroic achievements through which the white race 
have, in a single century, wrought a mighty State and civilization out of 
the chaos of wild and exuberant nature, the story of this land, in thrilling 
adventure and romantic incident, is not surpassed by that of any other, of 
ancient or modern times. 

Through the midst of the famed Bluegrass region, one of the tributary 
rivers of which we have spoken had cut its channel deep in the rocky bed 
over which it flowed, and left the cliffs towering in perpendicular lines four 
hundred feet above. On either side, amid the undulating pastures of wild 
clover, bluegrass, and cane, game most abounded, and here lay the favorite 
and most frequented hunting-grounds of the red men. The Indians called 
this river, which meandered through the wild Eden of their sports and advent- 
ures, by the weird name '■'■Kan-tuck-ee,'' expressive of its traditional memo- 
ries; and from this poetic title the white men borrowed and gave, both to the 
river and country, the name — Kentucky. 



EARLY EXPLORING PARTIES. 



CHAPTER II. 



Early traditions of the great wilderness 
beyond the mountains from first advent- 
Tirers. 

First map in 1749. 

Daniel Boone's visit in 1769, the first 
authentic account. 

The hunter's camp. 

First built on Red river, near the junc- 
tion of Estill, Clark, and Powell counties. 



The hunter's paradise found and de- 
scribed. 

Boone and Stewart captured by Indians. 

Their ingenious escape. 

They return to camp and find their 
comrades missing. 

No tidings of them after. 

Alone ill the solitude of the wilder- 
ness. 



The chain of mountains called the Appalachian by the Southern Indian 
tribes, and the Alleghany by the Northern, which stretches across the conti- 
nent on the eastern side, from Alabama to Pennsylvania, and the Cumberland 
range in the rear, stood like forbidding barriers between the colonial settle- 
ments on the Atlantic slope, and the mysterious wilderness lying far away 
toward the sunset. Little was known of the latter, even by tradition. Yet, 
from 1543 to 1750, it was viewed at long intervals by white men in navigating 
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and in transient visits of exploration through 
the forests. The roving Spaniard, in his first search for gold and empire, 
cast lustful eye on it in passing ; the intrusive Frenchman, a century later, 
ventured from his frontier posts at Pittsburgh and Vincennes, to penetrate 
its forests from time to time ; while the enterprising Englishman from the 
colonies was found occasionally wandering upon its borders, or amid its 
forests, from the visit of Colonel Wood, in 1654, until the first visit of Doctor 
Walker and that of James McBride, one hundred years later. 

In 1 75 1, Captain Christopher Gist led an exploring party as far as the 
valley of Kentucky river, and up the same on his way to North Carolina, in 
the interest of the Ohio Land Company. ^ Lewis Evans, of Philadelphia, j 
published a map of the middle colonies of North America in 1749, including 
this territory, which he revised in 1755, copies of which are yet extant. In 
1750, Doctor Walker, a prominent Virginian, in company with several others, 
made a visit to Kentucky, entering by way of Powell's valley and a gap in 
Laurel mountain. Descending the mountain, they found a river flowing 
south-westerly, on the other side. The doctor gave the hame Cumberland 
to both the mountain and the river, which they yet bear, in honor of 
England's "Bloody Duke" of Cumberland. In 1758, his party made a 
second visit, coming in by the same route. Journeying to the waters of 
Dick's river, and then turning a north-easterly course to find the Ohio river, 

iGist's Journal in Pownall's Topography of North America, p. 14. 



4 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

they traversed the mountainous region to the Big Sandy, and finally returned 
to Virginia with very unsatisfactory views of the country, i 

But the truer aspects of Kentucky were viewed by John Finley and a 
party of comrades in 1767. They passed the mountainous region, and for 
months traversed and hunted through the interior forests and cane-brakes, 
with sensations of wonder and delight at the fertility of the soil, the luxu- 
riant growth of vegetation, and the boundless supply of wild game for the 
hunter's spoils. 

Late in the same year, Finley and his party returned to North Carolina 
with trophies of their hunt, and to spread abroad among the people stories 
of the wonderful land they had seen. Enough was now known to picture 
to the restless pioneer mind the great wilderness beyond the mountains as a 
new land of promise, more attractive than the comforts of home and the safe 
repose of civilization. The awakened interest intensified, and the spirit of 
adventure soon found heroic votaries among the settlers, who were trained to- 
Indian warfare, to hunting, and to all the perils of border life. 

In 1769, some of the same party, with John Finley to pilot them, banded 
together under the lead of the celebrated Daniel Boone, from the valley of 
the Yadkin river. North Carolina, for a better defined excursion into the 
heart of the great trans-montane wilderness. These hunters reached the foot- 
hills of the mountains in June, and constructed a permanent camp on Red 
river, some fifteen miles above where it empties into the Kentucky, very 
near the junction of Estill, Clark, and Powell counties. This frail and 
hasty structure was their only and rude home-like shelter. From this, 
rendezvous, from June until December, the parties sallied forth to the hunt 
and to explore the country far and wide, and at intervals to return, and, 
around the qamp-fires, to relate new stories of marvelous scenes and episodes 
which were remembered of their ventures. 2 

The hunter's camp was so much a part of the earliest backwoodsman's 
life, that we must not omit to describe it here. It was called a ' ' half faced 
cabin." At the north or west side, from whence the chill winds blow, the 
body of a large fallen tree was chosen for the rear end. Ten feet in front 
on the south or south-east side, and ten feet apart, two double sets of stakes 
were firmly planted a few inches apart in the ground, and standing about 
eight feet high, for the four corners. Between the double stakes the ends of 
poles were inserted, while the other ends rested against, or on top of, the 
fallen tree, thus forming a frame-work for the side of the camp-cabin. Poles 
were cut and laid across the top, and the frame-work was finished. The 
roof and sides were next covered with bark stripped from adjacent trees, or 
with blankets and the skins of wild beasts slain. The shelter was now com- 
plete at top and on three sides. With an ax only, it was the work of a 
single day. The southerly and sunny front was left open, and here the 
camp-fire was built and kindled for the comfort of the stalwart household, 

1 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 6. 2 Boone's Autobiography. 



CAPTURE AND ESCAPE OF BOONE AND STEWART. 5 

and to broil or stew the delicious loins of venison, the rich steak of bear or 
buffalo, or the dainties of such of the wild game as might last have fallen by 
the hunter's rifle. But sudden experiences of Indian warfare soon taught 
the pioneers that the protection of the frail hunter's camp was of little avail 
against the arrows and rifles of the stealthy and ambushed savage, ready to 
resist to the death the intruder on his favorite hunting-grounds. The bullet- 
proof cabin with port-holes, and finally the stockade and block-house, which 
were substituted from hard necessity, soon came to make up a part of history. 

During the summer and autumn of their stay, Boone and comrades trav- 
ersed the valleys of Elkhorn, the brakes of Dick's river, and the pasture- 
grounds of Stoner and Licking. The season was most favoring. Summer 
had opened; and the verdure of the forest, the foliage of the cane and vine, 
and the luxuriance of the native grasses mantled the face of nature, unadorned 
by art, with a wealth and glory of landscape such as eye or tongue had never 
before pictured to their enchanted visions. At the base of this exuberance 
of vegetation, they beheld a soil not less unctuous and fertile than that of the 
famed delta of Egypt, and strangely contrasting with the impoverished and 
sterile soils of Virginia and the Carolinas. As summer faded into autumn, 
the robes of universal green, with which nature clothed her peerless land- 
scapes, took on the varying hues of red and golden and russet-brown, all 
veiled in the smoky haze so peculiar to the serene and balmy Indian-summer 
season of the Ohio valley. Amid these sylvan scenes roamed the timid 
deer, the stately elk, the surly bear, the ravenous wolf, the crafty panther, the 
majestic buffalo, and game of lesser note, innumerable. From brake and 
cove and glen, springs of cool and limpid waters sprang out, and coursed 
their way with rippling music amid banks of bordering sward and flowers, or 
overhanging vine, to the creeks and rivers that bore away to the Ohio. Our 
heroes of the hunter's camp, enchanted with the Eden they had found, dwelt 
in and traversed its realms for six months of unalloyed delights. 

A startling episode suddenly transformed this charming life, broke up the 
camp, and rudely dispersed the party. Late in this year, Boone and John 
Stewart, while on a hunting trip, were captured by a band of Indians. 
They were marched by day, and closely watched by night. Feigning con- 
tentment, they caused the savages to relax their vigilance and resign them- 
selves to sleep, when they effected their escape on the seventh day of their 
captivity. Making their way back to the camp, they found it plundered and 
deserted. No intelligence of John Finley and his three comrades was after- 
ward had by them ; and whether they fell victims to savage cruelty, or 
returned to the settlements again, history bears uncertain record. Boone 
and Stewart were alone in the midst of the vast wilderness, with no living 
being, save savages and wild beasts, within hundreds of miles, as far as they 
knew. For months they lived upon the wild meat and fruits of the wilder- 
ness, and without bread or salt. ^ 

iBoone's Autobiography. 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTEE III. 



Squire Boone finds his brother, Daniel, | 
and Stewart alone in the wilderness. 

Stewart slain and scalped. 

The two Boones spend the winter hunt- 
ing in Kentucky. 

In May, Squire returns home for pow- 
der and provisions. 

Daniel, for months, hunts alone through 
the forests. 

Squire Boone returns in July and finds 
him. 

The " Long Hunters" visit upper Green 
river in 1769. 

First camp near Monticello. 

Part of them descend the Cumberland 
and Mississippi in boats loaded with skins 
and furs. 

Colonel Knox advances to Dick's river. 



Next encamps near Greensburg. 

The " Long Hunters " traverse the prai- 
ries of Barren, Warren, and other counties 
in their hunts until 1772. 

The Boone and Knox parties each igno- 
rant of the other's presence. 

The habit, style, and character of the 
backwoodsman. 

The Boones without salt or bread, and 
living on game and wild berries, explore 
the wilderness for two years. 

Return home to prepare their families 
for removal to Kentucky. 

Great interest and curiosity excited 
among the people by the stories of the 
returned hunters. 

Many persuaded to venture to the wil- 
derness. 



Late in the autumn of 1769, Squire Boone, a brother of Daniel, set out 
from his home in North CaroUna, with one companion, to intercept the 
wandering hunters in the far West. During the latter part of December the 
two parties met, as by favoring Providence, in the solitudes of the great 
wilderness, and at a time of perilous need to both. The want of the new 
supply of powder and bullets brought out w-as beginning to be sorely felt. 
But the Boones were destined to the early loss of their two comrades. The 
one who came with Squire Boone returned homeward, and no mention is 
afterward made of him. Brave John Stewart met a more tragic fate. The 
frosts of early winter had disrobed the forests, and thus removed the veil of 
foliage which so often and so securely had sheltered them from the wary eye 
of the enemy. As the party of three were passing the edge of a cane- 
brake, they were suddenly fired on by Indians, and Stewart fell mortally 
wounded. The Boones, plunging into the brake, fled for their lives, not able 
even to prevent one of the savages, as was their immemorial custom, from 
rushing upon the slain victim, and, winding one hand in the crown of hair, 
with a large knife in the other, taking off the scalp, and leaving bare the 
skull. This barbarous practice the white man often saw, and, fired with 
vengeance, learned to retaliate in kind upon his red foe, until Indian scalps 
were sometimes taken, as were those of slain whites. 

The two brothers, like fabled heroes, tarried alone to brave the perils of 
the boundless and inhospitable forests, to explore further their mysteries, and 



SQUIRE BOONE'S RETURN. 7 

to follow the hunt through all that winter and until May ist; at which time 
Squire Boone bade Daniel a temporary farewell and returned home across 
the mountains, mainly for needed ammunition and supplies. For two months 
following this separation, Daniel Boone traversed the wilderness alone, save 
the presence of adventurous savages and wild beasts, with only his trusty 
rifle and hunting-knife, and matchless skill in using them, as the guarantee 
for his life. In the interval of solitude, Boone says in his autobiography; 
"One day I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and 
beauties of nature I met with in this charming season expelled every gloomy 
and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales retired, and 
left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the 
most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, 
looking around with astonished delight, beheld the ample plains below. On 
the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent 
dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucky with inconceivable 
grandeur. At a vast distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable 
brows, and penetrate the clouds." 

On the 27th of July he was glad to welcome back to his vast solitudes 
the companionship of Squire Boone again. The latter came with horses 
ladened with the supplies; and the two met, as agreed, at their second camp, 
more recently formed on Station Camp Creek, in Estill county, by concert 
of understanding, and together resumed their hunter's life. Squire Boone 
had carved upon a rock, yet standing near Little Blue Lick, in Madison 
county, and still known as "Boone Rock," the inscription, ^'■Squire Boone, 
1770," to inform his brother while on this favorite hunting spot that he had 
returned, and to be on the alert. Exploring the country from the head, 
waters of Cumberland river to the Ohio, they discovered its main streams, 
and its variety of soil and surface. By following its trodden roads, or 
"traces," as the pioneers called them, which the buffaloes made from their 
grazing fields and brakes, they found a number of the great "licks" to 
which wild animals in countless multitudes commonly resorted in hunt of 
salt. These buffalo traces are plainly marked out to the present day. Boone 
and companions observed with wonder that there were no human habitations, 
or even evidences of Indian villages, to be found anywhere in Kentucky, 
but that this region was known as the common park, or hunting range, and 
frequent battlefields of the tribes of the North and West and South. 

Early in the year 1769, prompted by the growing interest in the attrac- 
tions of the wilderness of the West, a party of forty adventurous hunters 
gathered from the valleys of New river, Holston, and Clinch, and crossed the 
mountains from Virginia, for the purpose of trapping and shooting game. 
Passing the south fork of the Cumberland, they selected for a place of ren- 
dezvous a spot known as Price's Meadow, near a flowing spring, about six 
^Kniles from Monticello, in Wayne county, and made a camp and depot for 
their supplies and skins, which they agreed to deposit every five weeks. They 



8. HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

liunted far out to the south and west over the country, much of which was 
covered with prairie grass, and with great success. They found no traces of 
human settlements, but many human bones under mounds and stones erected, 
and in caves. Gordon, Baker, Mansco, and seven others, loaded two boats 
and two canoes with skins and wild meat, and embarked down the Cumber- 
land and Mississippi to the Spanish fort Natchez, and thence home. Others 
were lost in the wilderness, or reached home after great perils and privations. 
But in the fall. Colonel James Knox separated with a party of nine, and 
ventured northward deeper into the forest. Meeting a band of Cherokee 
f Indians, the chief, Captain Dick, known to several of the whites, directed 
V them to the region of his river further on, where they would find plenty of 
game, and " to kill it and go home." They found game abundant at what 
has ever since been known as Dick's river. In 177 1, Knox, Skaggs, and 
comrades, joined by Mansco, Bledsoe, and others from the settlements, hunt- 
ing and trapping yet farther west, built a house for the deposit of their skins, 
about nine miles eastward from Greensburg, near the site of Mount Gilead 
church, in the direction of Columbia. From this center they penetrated the 
prairie country as far as Barren, Hart, and adjacent counties. Some of these 
bold backwoodsmen returned to the settlements in 1772, while the others 
remained. So long were they absent that they were known in after history 
as the " Long Hunters."^ 

By coincidence, the Boones and their comrades did not fall in with Colo- 
nel Knox and party, during the two years they were jointly exploring the 
vast labyrinths of forests and plains. Neither knew of the presence of the 
other party, occupying different sections. The former invaded the hunting- 
grounds of the revengeful and murderous Indian tribes of the North. The 
latter traversed those that were mostly frequented by the Cherokees and 
other of the Mobilian tribes of the South, who, while they plundered and 
murdered at times, were more tractable than the Miamis. Some of Colonel 
Knox's men were slain by them, and more than once they plundered their 
camps of kettles, skins, and supplies. 

These backwoodsmen were a class pecuhar to themselves in their charac- 
ters, their habits, and their preferments. Their dress was adapted to the life 
of the forest ranger. The hunting-shirt was a loose frock with cape, made 
of deer skins dressed. Leggings of the same material covered the lower 
limbs, with moccasins for the feet. The cape, the coat, and the leggings 
were usually adorned with fringes. The under garments were of coarse 
cotton. A leather belt encircled the body; on the right side hung the 
hatchet or tomahawk, on the left was the hunting-knife, the powder-horn, 
and bullet-pouch — all indispensable. With garments less substantial they 
could not have made their way through brush and thorns, or over rocks and 
pebbles. The hunter was his own tailor, and fashioned his garments at the 
camp-fire. Each man bore his trusty rifle, ever on the alert for deadly foes ' 

I Haywood's Tennessee, pp. 75-76 ; Collins, Vol. II., p. 417. 



INTEREST AND CURIOSITY EXCITED. 9 

or welcome game. It was flint-lock, but fine-sighted; and rarely did it fail 
the practiced marksman, unless the sparks from flint and steel missed the 
powder, or there was a " flash in the pan." The contingency of final resort 
to tomahawk or knife implied death to one or both of the combatants as 
well. 

The voluntary exile of Daniel Boone from home and civilization had now 
extended nearly two years. In March, 1771, he at last was induced to turn 
his steps toward North Carolina, with hope of soon again embracing his wife 
and children, yet very dear to him. In his narrative, written from his own 
dictation by John Filson, in 1784, he says : "I returned home to my family 
Avith a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, 
which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune." 

The Boone party and the "Long Hunters," welcomed back, were as 
famed at home and abroad among the colonists of the Atlantic slopes, as 
were Jason and his comrades returned to the shores of their native Thessaly, 
bearing the prize of the Golden Fleece. From far and near the people came 
to hear, while these modern Argonauts of the forest rehearsed to wondering 
auditors most glowing descriptions of the land of promise they had explored. 
They wearied not in picturing to the curious and willing neighbors what they 
had seen of the marvelous fertility of soil, the prodigal growth of giant for- 
est and luxuriant pasture, the health and delight of climate, and the count- 
less supply and variety of great and small game with which the wilderness 
abounded, all animated with the enchanting novelty, and adorned with the 
majestic grace and boldness of nature's creative energy. Nor did they for- 
get to relate the marvelous and weird stories of viewing around the salt licks, 
where vast herds of buffalo, and elk, and deer were wont to congregate, the 
skeleton bones of monstrous mammoths, the bodies of which must have been 
many times larger than those of any animal known to history; of the dis- 
covery of the remains of human beings of past generations in caves and 
cliffs; and of mounds for fortifications, for religious rites, and for burial-places 
of a people more civilized than the Indians, but of whom they found no 
other traces of existence. The restless spirit of adventure was excited, and 
many a stalwart heart kindled and beat earnestly as the wistful eye turned 
toward the sunset land, and vowed, that though the pioneer 'niust anticipate 
the savage foe from behind every tree, within every brake, and from every 
ambush, yet fortune and life should be ventured there. The resolve of these 
heroic men, of Anglo-Saxon origin and American mold, made for the future 
of Kentucky a manifest destiny. 



lO 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTEK lY. 



No Indian tribes found dwelling in 
Kentucky. 

This the common huniing-ground. 

Why Kentucky was called "The Dark 
and Bloody Ground." 

Remains of prehistoric races. 

Indian legends of the same. 

Destroyed in a great battle at the falls 
of Ohio. 

Indian superstitions in regard to their 
burial-places. 

Tribal origin and succession of the In- 
dians. 

When the Shawanees occupied Ken- 
tucky. 

Cox's map shows that they were here in 
1654; the map in Marquette's Journal, in 
1681 ; and that in Charlevoix's History, 
in 1744. 

Evan's map shows them to have removed 



^^ '755 > but marks a war-path through 
Northern Kentucky. 

All traces of Shawanee lodges removed 
from Kentucky, in Filson's map, in 1784. 

Chief Black Hoof visits Kentucky in 
1816; states that he was born at Indian 
Old Fields, Clark county, Ky., about 1730, 

Ficklin's letter on the question. 

Legend of the " Lover's Cave." 

Subdued by the Mohawks of the North- 
east. 

Harassed by the Southern tribes, they 
abandon Kentucky and establish their 
villages in Ohio. 

Transfers of title by the Mohawks, the 
Shawanees, and the Cherokees, succes- 
sively, to the whites. 

After all these treaties and transfers, 
Kentucky was won by the valor of her 
pioneer children. 



It was phenomenal that no Indian villages were found in Kentucky, and 
no evidences are of record of any tribal habitations being located within this 
territory, since 1750, except a few temporary lodges on the Ohio bank, 
opposite the mouth of the Scioto. From that date, as tradition held, it was 
by tacit concession the common hunting-ground for all the tribes on the 
North, the South, and the West. ^ The lodges nearest Kentucky were those 
of the Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Catawbas on the Hogotege, now the Ten- 
nessee, river, southward, and the Shawanees, Wyandots, and Delawares on 
the Scioto and Miami rivers, northward. From these abodes would issue 
forth, repeatedly, bands of savages, often professedly for the hunt, but always 
painted, equipped, and armed to assume the role of warrior when oppor- 
tunity tempted. The great unoccupied forest and prairie country that lay 
west of the mountains, bordered on the north by the Ohio, and on the south 
by the Shawanee, now Cumberland, river, was the favorite resort of these 
roving and predatory Indian parties. Often the warriors of different tribes 
met on these excursions in deadly conflict, and re-enacted the bloody trage- 
dies for which Indian warfare has ever been noted. It was traditional that 
this had long been, not only the famed hunting range of neighboring tribes, 
but the fated field of frequent and sanguinary combat between partisan 

iRafinesque, p. 38, in Marshall's History. 



EVIDENCES OF A PREHISTORIC RACE. II 

bands or organizea armies of hostile tribes. From this association with strife 
and blood, and from the awe-inspiring solitude that reigned over the vast 
uninhabited forest, the Indians left to this land the expressive title, " Dark 
and Bloody Ground." 

The Indian tribes only are known to history as the aborigines, or original 
occupants, of the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. But ancient 
mounds, earthworks, and antiquarian relics found distributed over these 
-/alleys give indisputable evidence that a prehistoric race, of a civilization 
superior to that of the Indian, were previous occupants. Their utensils, 
their use of copper, and their knowledge of geometry displayed in the con- 
struction of mound-works, show that they were more advanced in the arts of 
peace and the science of war, than were the rude denizens who disputed 
with the white man the supremacy of the new world of America. Of the 
origin, characteristics, and destiny of this mysterious and extinct people we 
know nothing, except by fabled story, hieroglyphic records, and antique 
remains. The Indians repeated to the pioneer whites a legendary tradition, 
which they said their fathers had handed down, that ages before there dwelt 
in the valleys on either side of the Ohio a numerous and powerful people, 
with whom their tribes engaged in destructive war. After much fighting, 
these primitive people were finally defeated in a great battle near the falls of 
the Ohio river. The remnant of their armies retreated for refuge on an 
island just below the falls, where they were pursued and exterminated by 
their fierce foes. The location of Sand Island, and the appearances of a 
vast burying ground on the north bank of the Ohio opposite, seem to lend 
an interest of probability to the story. 

Conclusive testimonies to the existence of such a prehistoric nation are in 
the many tumuli, or mound works, distributed over the savannas of the Gulf 
States, the plains of the Mississippi and tributaries, and as far north as the 
Genesee and Susquehanna valleys. Their form, position, structure, and 
contents not only show their artificial origin, but distinguish them as intended 
for sepultures, temples, or fortresses. In Collins' History of Kentucky may 
be found ample descriptions of these in Allen, Bourbon, Butler, Greenup, 
Mason, Trigg, and other counties. They are uniformly found in valleys, or 
in fertile lands capable of supporting dense populations, after the habit of 
ancient nations on the Eastern continent. The aged trees grown on the 
mounds, and other evidences, show these tumuli were constructed six or 
seven centuries ago, or more. The Indian traditions were of divers, but 
concurring, sources, agreeing in the story that the confederate armies of the 
tribes of the North drove this ancient people back on the Ohio, where the 
remnant were finally destroyed at the falls. Traces of extensive military 
defenses are found in the mound-fortifications of Fayette, Pendleton, Boone, 
and other counties, which some antiquarian writers assume to be part of a 
great line of similar works, which is traced from the lakes, south east, 
through Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, to the South Atlantic 



12 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

coast. The mysterious and deep impressions, which these legends made on 
the superstitious minds of the savages, lent an additional coloring to the 
spirit of awe with which Kentucky was regarded. The Indians believed that 
the spirits of the dead lingered about the places of their sepulture. The 
slain of these vaguely-remembered wars, by myriads, were believed to lie 
buried in the valleys of the Licking, the Cumberland, the Kentucky, and 
the Ohio rivers ; and this gave more intensity to their weird conceptions. It 
was a land of legends. Among the contents of these mound-works ex- 
cavated, have been found proofs that the indigenous maize, or Indian 
corn, was the chief product of agriculture, on which the prehistoric people 
relied for breadstuffs ; as it was with the savages, until the coming of the 
whites to America varied the products of the soil with seeds from the 
granaries of Europe. Of course, we must consider most that has been 
written in regard to this traceless people of many centuries ago, as con- 
jectural, and leave investigation to the scientist who may be fond of anti- 
quarian research. We know little beyond the fact that such a people as 
described, inhabited this region before the advent and occupancy of the 
Indian. Were they exterminated by the latter in relentless wars, or were 
they induced to move southward to escape their cruel foes or the rigors of an 
inhospitable climate, finally to be merged into the great Aztec family of 
Mexico ? The curious may inquire, but history is as voiceless and m3'ste- 
rious as the burial-mounds, which tell us but little else than such a people 
lived and died. 

We must not burden the historic page, or confuse the reader, with an 
account of tribal successions, with all their ramifications. The restless and 
improvident habits of the Indians forbade that they should numerously and 
densely populate any locality; while their cruel, treacherous, and destructive 
spirit led to the frequent extermination or dispersion of opposing tribes, and 
hence they often changed locality and condition. The powerful and warlike 
Shawanees held their home in Kentucky during the seventeenth, and late in 
first half of the eighteenth, centuries; but were often at war with tribes 
north and south of them. About 1660, the Mohawks, or Iroquois, of the 
north-east, having procured firearms, came down the Ohio in large war 
parties, laid waste the country, and defeated the Shawanees and many other 
tribes on both sides of the river. In 1700, this was repeated, and the latter 
were further reduced and humbled; after which peace ensued between the 
two. 1 Being also harassed by the Cherokees, Catawbas, Muscogees, and 
Chickasaws, from the Tennessee valley, they retired from Kentucky and 
built their lodges on the Miami, Scioto, and Muskingum rivers, in Ohio. 
They then allied themselves with their old enemies, the Iroquois, against the 
southern hostiles just named. After this, no villages were known to exist 
between the Ohio and Cumberland; and Kentucky was henceforth the 
common hunting-ground, as well as the battlefield, of the tribes north and 

I Rafinesque ; Ancient Annals of Kentucky, in Marshall's History, Vol. I., pp. 37 and 38. 



CHIEF BLACK HOOF VISITS KENTUCKY. I3 

south ; until the whites enforced, by conquest, the claim and possession, which 
before they had purchased. 

From the notes of Colonel Wood, of his journey through this country in 
1654, and from other sources, Daniel Cox published his "Description of 
Carolana, as called by the English, or La Louisiane by the French ; and 
of the great and famous Meschachebe river." On the map accompanying 
this work, the " Chaouanons," from whence came the word Shawanese. 
are located west of the Alleghanies, and between the Ohio and Cumberland 
rivers. This is repeated on the map of " Marquette's Journal," published 
in Paris, in 1681; and finally confirmed by the map with "Charlevoix's 
History of New France," put forth in 1744. 

In Evans' map of 1755, Pownell's edition, the "Shawanese" are located 
on both sides of the Ohio river, but mainly on the north side, from the 
Miami to the Hockhocking. One or two traces of villages only, on the 
south side, and below the Big Sandy, are pointed out, and these of vague 
uncertainty. A warpath of the nation is laid down, beginning near the 
mouth of Kanawha. Then crossing Big Sandy, by way of Blue Licks, 
Elkhorn valley, and Eagle Hills, it passes over into Ohio, above the mouth 
of the Kentucky. On Filson's '^ Map of Kentucke,'" issued in Philadelphia, 
in 1784, the lodges of the Shawanees are all located north of the Ohio, of 
course ; nor does he, in his history, the materials of which he gathered from 
the earliest pioneers, as well as from his own explorations of the country, 
give to the reader any definite knowledge as to when the last villages of the 
Indians were removed from the territory of Kentucky. 

Black Hoof {Catahecassa), who preceded Tecumseh as a commanding 
chief of the Shawanees, and who was prominent in nearly all the great 
battles of that nation, from Braddock's defeat to Wayne's victory, was an 
implacable foe of the English, and afterward of the Americans. Disheart- 
ened by Wayne's victory, he made peace with the whites, which he kept in 
good faith. In 1816, when over one hundred years of age, he made a tour 
through Central Kentucky, and stated to white residents that he was born 
at Indian Old Fields, in the eastern part of what is now Clark county. 
This spot has long been known as the site of an Indian town ; and perhaps 
about the last occupied in Kentucky by the Shawanees. Black Hoof famil- 
iarly pointed out and described other objects and peculiarities in that section, 
familiar to his boyhood days. He died in 1831, aged nearly one hundred 
and twenty years. We quote from Ficklin's letter from Lexington, dated 
August 31, 1847, to H. R. Schoolcraft, in answer to inquiries in regard to 
the last Indian villages : 

" There is one fact favorable to this State, which belongs to few, if any, of the 
sister States. We have not to answer to any tribunal for the crime of driving off the 
Indian tribes and possessing their lands. There were no Indians located within our 
limits on our taking possession of this country. A discontented portion of the Shawa- 
nee tribe, from Virginia, broke off from the nation, which had removed to the Scioto 



14 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



country, in Ohio, about the year 1730, and formed a town, known to the whites by the 
name of Lulbegrud, in what is now Clark county, about thirty miles east of this place. 
The tribe left this country about 1750 and went to East Tennessee, to the Cherokee 
Nation. Soon after they returned to Ohio and joined the rest of the nation, after spend- 
ing a few years on the Ohio river, giving name to Shawneetown, in the State of Illinois, 
a place of some note at this time. This information is founded on the account of the 
Indians at the first settlement of this State, and since confirmed by Black Hoof, a native 
of Lulbegrud,* who visited this country in 1816, and went on the spot, describing the 
water-streams and hills in a manner to satisfy everybody that he was acquainted with 
the place." 

Thus the inquiry, as to the exact time the Shawanees made their final 
removal northward, bears us from the clearer light of historic research, to the 
fading twilight of tradition and legend. There are many stories of romance 
in the domain of the latter, which might lend a picturesque charm to our 
pages, if it were not intrusion to introduce them into the narrative of history. 

At the time of the visits of the early pioneers, after 1750, the title to this 
country, on the part of the Indians, was held on various pleas by different 
nations. The Mohawks, now known as the Six Nations, by their policy of 
incorporating the tribes as they conquered them, asserted title to it on the 
ground that they had subdued the Shawanees, and occupied it as their own 
for a time. So much faith was reposed in this title by the English Govern- 
ment, that at the great council, held in October, 1768, at Fort Stanwix, in 
the State of New York, the Sijj Nations included all of Kentucky east of the 
Tennessee river in the treaty cession made there, and in consideration of 
which cession they received of the English a little over ^10,000, as stipu- 
lated by the agents, Sir William Johnson and Dr. Franklin. ^ 

A second claim to this country, on the part of Virginia, was founded on 
the treaty made by Lord Dunmore, governor, with the Shawanees and their 
Miami confederates, in 1774. In that year, these tribes allied their forces, 
to avenge the murders of the family and kindred of Chief Logan, as asserted, 
and invaded Virginia, near the Kanawha river, with an estimated army of 
fifteen hundred warriors. The colonial Legislature, at Williamsburg, then 
the capital of Virginia, had ordered the raising of an anned force to repel 
them. Governor Dunmore led fourteen hundred of these, who had rendez- 
voused at Fort Pitt, and marched down the Ohio. General Andrew Lewis, 
at the head of eleven hundred veteran frontiersmen, forming the left wing 

* Lulbegrud'\% not of Indian origin. In Book No. i, page 156, of the Clark County Court, is the 
following, furnished by Judge Wm. M. Beckner, and published with the oration of Colonel John Mason 
Brown, at the centennial of the battle of Blue Licks : 

"The deposition of Daniel Boone, being of lawful age, taken before us, the subscribing commis- 
sioners, this 15th day of September, 1796, being first duly sworn, deposeth and sayeth that irj the year 
1770 I encamped on Red river with five other men, and we had with us for our amusement the History 
of Samuel Gulliver's Travels, wherein he gave an account of his young master, Glumdelick, careing 
him on a market day for a show to a town called Lulbegrud. 

"A young man of our company called Ale.xander Neely came to camp to camp one night & told js 
he had been that day to Lulbegrud, & had killed two Brobdignags in their capital, • * * * and 
further sayeth not. Daniel BoONE " 

1 Treaty of Stanwix. Butler's History, p. 378. 



I 




WAR THE FORCED ALTERNATIVE. 1 5 

of the main army, crossed the mountains 
and intercepted the entire Indian forces, 
near the mouth of the Kanawha. At 
Point Pleasant, in the vicinity, was 
fought the greatest and most severely- 
contested battle known in the annals of 
Indian warfare in Virginia. The confed- 
erate tribes were signally defeated, and 
compelled to retreat to their towns, on 
the Scioto. Governor Dunmore, who 
was nearly one hundred miles above with 
his troops when the battle occurred, at 
once crossed the Ohio and marched for 
these towns. The Shawanee confeder- '■■ ^' 

ates sued for peace, and, in the negotia- buck hoof, (catahecassa.) 

,. . , 1 11 • 1 1 [Shaiuanee chief , from a picture ownedby the 

tlOnS, relmqUlShed all title to the country Polytechnic society of Kentucky^ 

south of the Ohio, for all future time. ^ The sequel shows the faith of the 
observance. 

Again, the following year, 1775, in the name of the Transylvania Com- 
pany, organized under the lead of Colonel Henderson and associates, Daniel 
Boone negotiated with the Cherokees, at Fort Wataga, located on a branch ? 
of Holston river, for all the territory of present Kentucky south and west of f 
the Kentucky river, except the few western counties of the Purchase. 2 ^ 

And finally, the balance of Kentucky lying west of the Tennessee river, 
and to the Mississippi, was purchased by treaty with the Chickasaws, con- 
firmed on the 19th day of October, iSiS.-^ Thus, all Indian titles and 
rights, to this devoted land of disputed claim and stubborn strife, were 
extinguished in succession, by the arbitrament of negotiation; and yet, the 
birth-throes of the nascent Commonwealth of Kentucky were to be endured, 
amid the blood and waste and anguish of the most cruel of savage warfare. 
Jealousies, animosities, and other causes of strife seemed ever recurring, and 
peaceful negotiations gave no guarantee of safety to life, or of permanency to 
possession. Indeed, the dominion of Virginia, after the declaration of inde- 
pendence and during the revolutionary war, seemed to rely mainly on her 
rights under the charter granted by James I., of Great Britain, to the cradle 
of empire she claimed from the Alleghany to the Mississippi, as set forth in 
her first constitution, of June 29, 1776. "Within these limits, she asserted 
the exclusive right of purchasing the soil from the aborigines." 

But we must not disparage the heroic valor and hardy endurance of the 
famed pioneers, by whose deeds and sufferings regenerated Kentucky re- 
ceived her baptism of blood, and her children the inheritance of liberty, 
with all the immunities of an exalted civilization. The rights of arms and 
of conquest are yet a part of the law of nations, and when the conditions of 

I Burk's Virginia, Vol. III., p. yfi. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 496. 3 Butler, p 15. 



l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Stipulation and treaty failed to restrain, there was left no better alternative. 
Amid the perils of continued invasion, and the atrocities and carnage ot 
relentless savage warfare, instigated and abetted by one of the most powerful 
empires of Europe, the issue of title and possession was transferred; and 
the brave backwoodsmen of Kentucky vindicated and sealed by the valor 
and skill of arms,, upon a hundred battlefields, the right to build their homes 
and fortunes upon her generous soil, for which peaceful compacts gave no 
certain guarantee. 

Of such travail was born our noble Commonwealth, destined to offer up the 
patriotic blood of her children upon every battlefield of our common country, 
to become the nursing mother of new commonwealths of the great West, and 
to rear up statesmen for the councils of the nation. Her children, at home 
and abroad, delight to own and honor her; and with pardonable pride. 

We bear in mind that at this first quickening into embryotic life, Ken- 
tucky was but an outlying wilderness of Virginia territory, claimed by a 
shadowy parchment title which was barely worth asserting, as yet; and that 
Virginia was but a colonial dependence of Great Britain across the ocean, 
from whence she derived her rulers, her laws, and her authority. It formed 
the pivotal center of the vast empire of transmontane area of the North 
American continent, which had, for two centuries, been shuffled in the bal- 
ances of treaty stipulations between England, France, and Spain, in the 
frequent changes of the fortunes of almost incessant wars between these 
rivals. True, English dominion was just now dominant; but how long this 
jurisdiction might continue, so depended on the issues of European strife, 
that no one could conjecture the government to whom allegiance might be 
due in a decade of years. The people, who went out to seek their fortunes 
in this unknown and mysterious land, knew not whether the King of Eng- 
land, or of France, or of Spain, if either, should own their allegiance. Out 
of this chaos of uncertain changes, Kentucky must have her genesis. 



BOONE S UNFORTUNATE EXPEDITION. 



17 



CHAPTEE Y. 



In 1773, Daniel Boone, with a party, sets 
•out to return to Kentucky. 

Attacked by Indians; Boone's son slain. 

The party abandon the visit to Ken- 
tucky, and fall back to Clinch river. 

Impetus to emigration and adventure. 

Bullitt, Harrod, McAfee, and Douglas 
lead parties out. 

Bullitt's hazardous visit to the Indians. 

The talks in council. 

McAfee's detour through Bracken. 

At Big Bone Lick. 

The mammoth remains there. 

Separate at the mouth of Kentucky river. 

Bullitt and Harrod go to Falls of Ohio. 

Anchor in Beargrass, and camp on its 
banks. 

Survey first plat on site of Louisville. 

McAfee and Hancock Taylor go up the 
Kentucky to Drennon's Lick. 



Continuing by Frankfort and Lawrence- 
burg, they pass on to the vicinity of Har- 
rodsburg. 

By Three Forks of Kentucky they re- 
turn home, but suffer great privations. 

Douglas and party tarry at Big Bonej 
the "graveyard of the mammoths." 

The era of the maslodonS. 

Their extermination by first men. - 

Kentucky now part of Fincastle county. 

Surveyor and deputies. 

John Floyd's character. 

Simon Kenton. 

He falls in love, and whips his rival. 

Flees the country, westward ; changes 
liis name to Butler. 

His adventures. 

Mrs. Ingles' captivity and wonderful es- 
cape. 

Ominous bodings of the future. 



The period from 1771 to 1773 was less eventful in actual exploration in 
Kentucky, yet the spirit of unrest and adventure was alive in the colonies. 
For two years the Boones had tarried at their homes, vying with the returned 
Long Hunters in repeating the fascinating stories of their experiences in the 
transmontane wilds. The delay was from no want of fixed resolve, but 
rather to reconcile their families to the idea of such a change of home, to 
convert their farms and fixtures, and to gather about them a body of friends 
willing to share the fortunes of the wilderness with them. All arrangements 
complete, on the 25th of September, 1773, Daniel Boone, with his own and 
five other families, set out upon the journey toward Kentucky. He was 
joined in Powell's valley by forty men, who were willing to accept him as 
their leader. Driving their cattle and swine in procession, and with bedding 
and baggage on pack-horses, they pursued their route in buoyant hope, until 
they neared the pass in the mountains, known as Cumberland Gap. Some 
young men, with the cattle, had fallen in the rear several miles, when they 
were suddenly assailed by a party of Indians, and six of them killed and a 
seventh wounded. The reports of firearms hastened the main body of the 
whites to the rescue, when the savages were driven off, and the dead buried. 1 

I Hartley's Daniel Boone, pp. ?t and 82. 



1 8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

This was a sad day for all, especially for the family of Daniel Boone, for 
among the slain was a beloved son. This disaster greatly disturbed the plans 
of the party. The Boones, and some others, were for proceeding onward to 
Kentucky, but the majority insisted on a return. The former yielding, all 
retraced their steps to the settlement on Clinch river, in south-west Virginia, 
about forty miles from the place where the Indians had attacked them. 
Here Boone remained through the winter, with his family. But the infection 
had spread far and wide, and moved others to visit Kentucky during this 
interval. A new impetus was given to this desire of adventure by the pro- 
visions of the Virginia government, granting bounties in lands, to be located 
in the Ohio valley, to the officers and soldiers of her own troops who had 
served in the British war in Canada, against the French, which terminated 
in the treaty of 1763, and in which France relinquished all future claim 
to the country from Canada to the Ohio valley, and back to the Mississippi 
river, inclusive. In 1773, and previously, adventurers, led by daring men, 
some of whom became illustrious in after history, explored these valleys, 
with a view to locating the choicest lands. No less a personage than George 
Washington surveyed 2,084 acres of land on Great Sandy, now embracing 
the town of Louisa, about the year 1769, carving his name on the beginning 
corner. For this land, a patent was issued to John Fry, by the crown of 
Great Britain, in 1772. 

In June, 1773, four parties from Virginia passed down the Ohio, led 
respectively by Captain Thomas Bullitt, Captain James Harrod, James Doug- 
las, and the McAfee brothers. A most remarkable incident, illustrative of 
the self-possessed courage and forethought of Captain Bullitt, is authentically 
given. Landing with his comrades on the north bank of the Ohio, at a con- 
venient point, and instructing his party to await his return, he set out alone 
for the Shawanee town of Chillicothe. Bullitt had come out to Kentucky 
with the double intention of surveying lands and of making a permanent 
settlement. For the first object, he had a special commission from William 
and Mary College, in Virginia, in the managers of which was vested the 
right of conferring such authority. He knew that the Miami tribes yet 
claimed their hunter's rights to this land, although, at the treaty of Fort 
Stanwix, the Six Nations had ignored such claim in the transfer to the Eng- 
lish. His comrades watched his departure, and awaited his return, with 
doubting anxiety. Bullitt reached the town without being discovered, and 
made known his presence by waving a white flag, as a token of peace. The 
astonished Indians gathered about him, and with curious interest asked him 
how and why he had so suddenly come to them. Bullitt, with ready self- 
possession, replied that he was from the Long Knife, and as the red men and 
white men were at peace, he had come among his brothers for a friendly talk 
about the white men setding on the other side of the Ohio. His own jourr 
nal gives his speech, and their response: ^ 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 33. 



CAPTAIN BULLITT'S SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 1 9 

" Brothers: We come from Virginia. The king of my people has bought 
from the nations of red men, both north and south, all the land, and I am 
instructed to inform you, and all the warriors of this great country, that the 
English and Virginians are in friendship with you. This friendship is dear 
to them, and they hold it sacred. The same friendship they expect from 
you. The Shawanees and Delawares are our nearest neighbors, and we 
want them to be our best friends. 

" Brothers : You did not get any of the money or blankets given for the 
land which we are going to settle. This was hard for you. But it is agreed 
by the great men who own the land, that they will make a present to\oth 
the Shawanees and Delawares the next year and the year following. 

"Brothers: I am appointed to setde the country, to Hve in it, to raise 
corn, and to make proper regulations among my people. There will be some 
principal men from my country soon, who desire to say more to you. The 
governor will come out this year, or the next. When I come again, I will 
have a belt of wampum. This time, I came in haste, and had not one ready. 
My people want the country, to settle and cultivate. They will have no 
objection to your hunting and trapping there. I hope you will live by us as 
brothers and friends. You know my heart, and as it is single toward you, 
I expect you to give me a kind talk. I will write to my governor what you 
say to me, and he will believe all I write." 

The Indians, as was their custom in council or conference, were grave 
and deliberative, and this matter concerned their hunting-grounds. They 
asked a day for an answer, and on the morrow they assembled again, with 
Bullitt present, and through Richard Butler returned the following response: 
"Oldest brother, the Long Knife: We heard you would be glad to see 
your brothers, the Shawanees and Delawares, and talk with them. But we 
are surprised that you sent no runner before you, and that you came quite 
near us, through the trees and grass, a hard journey, without letting us know 
until you appeared among us. 

" Brother : We have considered your talk carefully, and we are made glad 
to find nothing bad in it, nor any ill meaning. You speak what seems very 
kind and friendly, and it pleases us well. You mentioned to us your inten- 
tion to settle on the other side of the Ohio with your people. W^e are pleased 
that they are not to disturb us in our hunting ; for we must hunt to kill meat 
for our women and children, and to have something to buy our powder and 
lead, and to get us blankets and clothing. All our young people are pleased 
^^^\•h what you said. We desire that you will be strong in fulfilling your 
promises toward us, as we are determined to be very straight in advising 
our young men to be kind and peaceable toward you. This spring, we saw 
something wrong on the part of our young men. They took some horses 
from the whites ; but we have advised them not to do so again, and have 
cleaned their hearts of all bad intentions." 

Richard Butler was the interpreter, and made Captain Bullitt his guest 



20 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

while at Chillicothe. The latter, having executed his mission with rare satis- 
faction to himself, departed to meet again his comrades. All, with light 
hearts and high anticipations, launched their frail boats for their destinations, 
down the river. 

This reception of Bullitt, and the tenor of the talk on both sides, inter- 
pret to us the attitude and feelings of these Miami tribes toward the whites. 
They could not have been blinded to the results of the settlement of their 
hunting-grounds by the latter, and must have felt the keenest jealousy of 
such encroachment. But they were expecting some important favors of the 
whites, and this held them in abeyance. At the treaty of Stanwix, less than 
five years previous, the English had paid the Six Nations fifty thousand dol- 
lars for this country, a part of which the Shawanees once dwelt in, and which, 
they yet claimed as the hunting-grounds of themselves and confederates. 
Why? Because the Six Nations had, years before, swept down the Ohio, 
with their firearms against the bows and arrows of the Miamis, and con- 
quered the latter. The Shawanees regaining the occupancy and use of this- 
country still claimed under their old rights. They were discontented with 
being ignored at Stanwix, and this meant trouble and danger to the whites. 
For these reasons, no doubt, the Virginia authorities meditated making them 
presents in addition, which, in goods, trinkets, and ammunition, would pur- 
chase good will at small cost. Bullitt hazarded his bold adventure on a 
knowledge of the situation. The desire of the Indians for the gratuities 
was stronger than the passion of hatred toward a few enemies in their power. 
Could they have anticipated the events of the next twelve months, which 
caused them to assemble an army of fifteen hundred confederated warriors, 
to invade Virginia and to assail the whites in the desperate and bloody battle 
of Point Pleasant, the issue might have been far less flattering to Bullitt and 
party. 

The company of whites descended the Ohio to Limestone creek, at which 
point Robert McAfee separated from the others and made a detour through 
the country to North Licking, and down that stream some twenty-five miles, 
and thence through Bracken county to the Ohio river. Here, with toma- 
hawk and knife, he made a bark canoe, and overtook his friends at the 
mouth of the Licking. All descending farther, they landed and spent the 
4th and 5th of July at Big Bone Lick, in Boone county, wondering at the 
great herds of buffalo and deer which swarmed in the vicinity, and at the 
huge vertebra, ribs, and tusks of mammoth skeletons, of which they made 
their seats and tent-poles. Continuing their journey, they separated at the 
mouth of Kentucky river. Captain Bullitt, with James Harrod, John Smith, 
Isaac Hite, Jacob Sandusky, and others, reached the Falls of Ohio July 8th, 
and pitched their camp above the mouth of Beargrass creek. ^ They began 
their first surveys in this vicinity, and continued exploring and locating lands 
for some six weeks, southward as far as Salt river, in Bullitt county. This 

iButler, p. 22. 



DRENNON'S lick discovered and named. 21 

river derived its name at this time, from a salt lick, near its banks, which 
became afterward a noted place in the early history of Kentucky, known as 
Bullitt's Lick. The scene that mapped out before them as they approached 
the falls was a blending of the picturesque and unique. Before them, as far 
as the eye could reach, the bounding and foaming waters of the hitherto 
placid Ohio leaped angrily away, with a current of ten miles an hour, broken 
up by dangerous rapids, and offering an impediment to the further progress 
of their little boats that forced them to turn about for a safe retreat. Fortu- 
nately, the mouth of Beargrass tempted them into its quiet harbor, where 
they secured their boats and proceeded to build a camp upon its inviting 
banks, yet taking the precaution to retire in their boats at night to a shoal 
above Corn island. Early in August, they were joined by Taylor, Bracken, 
and Drennon, from the McAfee party. From notes preserved of Jacob San- 
dusky, Captain Bullitt, during the same month of August, laid off the town 
site of Louisville, the first surveyed in Kentucky, within the limits of the 
plat of the present city. ^ These survey parties were evidently acting with 
the sanction of Governor Lord Dunmore, of Virginia, as Bullitt avowed for 
himself; and so charmed was this sagacious and adventurous pioneer, that 
he determined at once to return to his home and prepare for removal and 
permanent settlement upon the lands he had located. But sickness and un- 
timely death soon after put an end to all his plans, and lost to the early 
settlers the services of one whose abilities, enterprise, and fortitude promised 
to rank him among the most conspicuous characters of Kentucky history. 
He served in the war against the French and Indians; and was at Brad- 
dock's defeat, and other engagements, serving as a captain in Washington's 
regiment. Had he survived, his experience and ability would have fitted 
liim to be among the greatest of the pioneers. 

The McAfee party, left at the mouth of the Kentucky river, consisted of 
James, George, and Robert McAfee, James McCoun and Samuel Adams, 
who had come from Bottetourt county, in Virginia, and Hancock Taylor and 
Matthew Bracken. Turning up the Kentucky, they rowed their light canoes 
some twenty miles, to the mouth of a creek, where they landed and went 
•out a mile or so to view a great salt lick, with herds of buffalo, deer, and 
elk dispersed over the valley. Here they fell in with Jacob Drennon, who 
had crossed the country from Big Bone, and preceded them one day. From 
the incident and the man, Drennon's creek and Drennon's Lick, in Henry 
county, were named. ^ Jacob Drennon was with the same parties at Big 
Bone a few days before, where, bribing a Delaware Indian with a trifle, he 
obtained information of this lick as a great game resort, and quietly set out 
through the forests, that he might lay claim to its first discovery. One day an 
unusual number of buffaloes were ranging at the lick, when Samuel Adams 
fired his rifle at one. Suddenly startled by the shot, the entire herd stam- 
peded directly toward Adams and James McAfee, and threatened to trample 

I Butler, p. 22. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 607. 



die kons scxapiag dK uce 
ID OBC side or de odKr, 

Mc^lfec The 

doMttnr 

dK Sck far ifce salt, or waiUBg dor taia at: 

nio loa&as vide ■ 
of X. ^Katt ckf, dK kHdr c mfcaqs MMik oae of 
im^Ur^maSr. as ikn* ave caled aoBd iaimv evcm fc^ and 
was-a^dhewecadeof Aeninc. TkisUatx was a. moM waif 
af dgae^asthafegf wddaMMfc^aiw^siMii^iafle, 
fs Lidk sd dK oMlii^ies awl Uaegiss laHk 
of EKfaoBB pii^s. It led tihe jdt^jf u s >d chbs dg K lmmlLi at a fawl 




Jacr. WLf haa i k ji il ne bbiI waada b dk 
sbc loBAcd aocsL ftaaaag oat Iqr Ac ndge aAnc dK^ 

■SL Ac^ Wf d soaAvaad, and sehb ciaaml the nvo'. 



: UMLi, aooae unuriLf wmi 
saJaeETtfs srr rf H2no**i^. OaAclartdiyof Jafx^!5cr5irrr^T6^dL 

m ike Fafc of I 7 — > 



of 
dK 




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vz-m- 







TTtT' 'XSi^Htt 





Be 
jah-nug XL HTiT in m ' 



*- -''Vf~ri>r ai»r 




:if» T°T ies^ or V'tu' ii - iwUn biik!5 tt 

tfmiTJ: . - - ' - m 'JTC^r ifia.: ' - ■ - 

_ 'r'li£"..is sn£S£~ IE i ISTTHIIl ") IVJf V I fT TTrtf- -^Tir - ^imtTTrnr 

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THMrJ <tf 'ft^M J.' *"M -t-uiii? "^JMr- mus^i 'ify'T "7^^-= — ■-= — 



r_--aii& Ta. I 



2 4 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

we conjecture that these gigantic animals made the Hcks, and especially this 
one, their exclusive resorts before the buffalo, the elk, and other hoofed 
kinds. From their remains, they were of the elephant family, and without 
hoofs; hence, their soft and cushioned feet, though supporting ponderous 
bodies, did not wear away the earth, nor did they lick away the ground, and 
cause the depression below the natural level. We instinctively associate the 
existence of these prescientific families of the animal kingdom with that of 
the prehistoric people, of whom we know too little by tradition or remains to 
safely conjecture. We may plausibly conclude that these mastodons ranged 
the forests, over which they had exclusive dominion, before the advent and 
occupancy of man ; not only here, but in other parts of the earth where their 
remains have been found. With the first invasion and habitation of the 
same country by any race of men, the extermination of such a family of ani- 
mals would be but a question of short time, whether the people subsisted by 
hunting or cultivating the soil. The hunter's instinct and calling would lead 
him to slay such game, with pride in the sport. The tillers of the soil would 
suffer from the depredations of such monsters on their fields and gardens, as 
they do from the foraging wild elephants in Ceylon and Africa. Their grind- 
ers show that they were herbiverous, and more a terror of the destructiveness 
of property, than of danger to life or person. The first coming of man upon 
this part of the earth was the signal for the extermination of all such mammoth 
species, just as advancing civilization, with superior arms, has successively 
exterminated the buffalo, the elk, the deer, and the bear, in turn. These 
mammoths were not ferocious, combative, and destructive, more than our 
living elephants, and were less capable of defense. They were powerful in 
physical strength, but ponderous, awkward, and sluggish in their movements; 
and therefore fell an easy prey to the weapons and arts of even the rudest 
of men. As the prehistoric people became strong enough in numbers, and 
skilled by experience in the hunt, they would doubtless seek and attack 
them in armed bodies, single or in herds, as advantage offered. The gigantic 
bodies of such quadrupeds made the mammoth a conspicuous object for the 
assailant, and constantly invited the pursuit of the latter for sport and for 
food supply. 

But why were such vast numbers of skeletons found at the lick ? A gen- 
tleman who gave much attention and study to these remains computes that 
the bones of one hundred mastodons and twenty arctic elephants were found 
at Big Bone. We can conceive of no natural causes for this spot becoming 
such a charnel house of death. It must have been from preconcerted and 
violent causes. The prehistoric aborigines, growing bolder and more skillful 
in the slaughter, and noting the time or season for the congregating of these 
animals at the lick, may have planned an organized and general assault on 
them, with a view to extermination ; or, as we know that many tribes of 
i:)eople learn in time the use of pitfalls to destroy large and unwieldy game, 
they may have dug such pitfalls, disguised with brush on top and set in 



COLONEL JOHN FLOYD. 25 

convenient position, for their destruction at this spot, where they habitually 
congregated in numbers. Certainly, the first people who found them here 
slew these leviathans of the land to extinction. From the preserved state 
of the bones, it can not be many centuries since they perished; and from the 
^idjacent trees and other marks of the depressed surface, it can not be more 
than a few centuries since the hoofed animals began the process of wearing 
away this earth. We have no historic knowledge of the mastodon, yet 
he is obscurely characterized in the language of the Bible. McAfee men- 
tions in his memoirs that a party of Delaware Indians were at Big Bone 
when he and his companions were there, and that he inquired of one of 
these Indians as to these remains. He replied that they had been seen very 
much as they were then, as long as he could remember, and the Indians 
knew nothing more about them. The Indian seemed to be about seventy 
years of age. 

Kentucky was a part of Fincastle county, Virginia, of which William 
Preston was surveyor. Hancock Taylor and James Douglas were deputy sur- 
veyors under him. Colonel John Floyd was another deputy, and the three 
were now in Kentucky to locate choice lands for themselves, and for land 
speculators of capital and influence, whose cupidity was inflamed by the 
confirmation of the reports of the genial climate and generous soil of the 
now-famed El Dorado beyond the mountains. Than Colonel Floyd, but few 
men played a more prominent part in the dramatic events that make up the 
liistory of Kentucky, from this date until his tragic death upon the theater of 
his own acting, nine years later. In cultured intelligence, in noble presence 
and bearing, and in unselfish and intrepid courage, fewest of his age were 
his peers; and no one deserves to be held in more grateful remembrance by 
the posterity of to-day. John Floyd was born in Virginia, in 1750, and was 
one of five brothers, three of whom and two brothers-in-law were slain by 
the Indians, illustrating the dangers which beset the lives of our pioneer 
fathers. His parents, William Floyd and wife, emigrated early to Kentucky, 
lived in Jefferson county until 1800, and died at the age of ninety years. ^ 
The maternal grandmother of Colonel Floyd was an Indian squaw, the 
daughter of a brother of the celebrated chief, Powhatan, so well known in 
colonial history. Colonel Floyd made his first survey on the Ohio river in 
Lewis county. May 2, 1773, ^^ two hundred acres, for Patrick Henry, the 
great patriot orator of Virginia, and continued to locate other tracts, at inter- 
vals, down the river until he reached the falls. * In person. Colonel Floyd 
was tall and rather spare, with complexion, hair, and eyes of dark color. 
In address, he was courteous, with the manners of a well-bred gentleman. 
His countenance was animated and pleasing, while his disposition was amia- 
ble. In any country, he would have been admired for the superior manly 
virtues and graces which made him the chivalrous defender of the weak, and 
the fearless soldier at the front in every hour of danger. Like Boone, Clark, 

I Collins, Vol. n., pp. 238-0 



26 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and Kenton, his services endeared him to the early settlers, while his daring" 
and skill made him well known to the Indians, by whom he was much feared. 

Of the men who made hunting and Indian fighting an occupation, no 
one more nearly rivaled Daniel Boone than did Simon Kenton, throughout 
the pioneer age in the settlement of Kentucky, i He was born of an Irish 
father and a Scotch mother, in Fauquier county, Virginia, April 13, 1755, 
and at this date of narrative was but eighteen years old. His family ob- 
scure, and very poor, his education was neglected, unfortunately for one 
who to natural vigor and acuteness of mind added so much of enterprise 
and individuality of character. So conspicuous a part did he act throughout 
the eventful period of his life, that justice, alike to his memory and to the 
reader of history, requires more than a passing mention of his name. At 
the age of sixteen, he fell passionately in love with a bewitching girl of the 
neighborhood, and was unfortunate enough to have a favored rival, who bore- 
off the prize. Mad with jealousy, and reckless with despair, young Ken- 
ton gave such insult and offense to the groom as to provoke a fierce battle 
between the two. In physical prowess, Kenton overmatched his adversary, 
and following up his punishment too far, the vanquished young man, bruised 
and bleeding, fell back insensible. Such conduct was foreign to all Kenton's- 
subsequent nature. Realizing the cruel inhumanity of his deed, his better 
feelings revolted. He lifted up the head of his unconscious victim and spoke 
kindly to him, but no answer came, and Kenton believed him dead. Much 
alarmed, he dropped the lifeless body and fled to the woods. 

Feeling that he was a fugitive from avenging justice, and that life at home 
was ruined, he turned his mind toward the solitudes of the great western 
wilderness, and determined that there should be found his city of refuge. 
Pushing on warily for days, with some difficulty he reached Ise's ford, ou 
Cheat river, in April, 1771. Here he changed his name to Simon Butler. 
At this settlement, he hired himself to work for a rifle and ammunition, 
after which he joined a party going to Fort Pitt. At the latter place, he first 
met Simon Girty, afterward held in such infamous notoriety as a leader and 
instigator of the savages in their cruel warfare on his own people. Kenton 
here fell in with George Yeager and John Strader, in the autumn of the same 
year, and the three proceeded down the river, looking for the "cane land" 
of which Yeager had given glowing descriptions, repeated from the Indians 
among whom he had been. They went as far down as the mouth of Ken- 
tucky river, and then returr?ed to the Big Kanawha, where, in the following, 
winter, they built a camp, and hunted and trapped until the spring of 1773, 
when Yeager was killed by the Indians while lying in camp with his com- 
panions. Kenton and Strader fled to the woods, barefooted and naked, 
except their shirts. Without food, or guns to procure it, they wandered, 
with incredible hardships and sufferings, until the sixth day, on which they 
several times in despair laid down to die; but struggling on again, they at 

I Collins, Vol. II., pp. 442-3- 



MRS. INGLES' ESCAPE FROM THE INDIANS. 27 

last reached the Ohio and found some hunters, who fortunately relieved 
them, perhaps from a premature death by famine. 

In the summer of 1773, Kenton joined a party going down the Ohio in 
search of Bullitt. Pursuing as far as the mouth of the Big Miami, and find- 
ing Bullitt's camp deserted, they apprehended that he had been murdered 
by the Indians. Uneasy as to their own safety, they destroyed their canoes 
and, under the pilotage of Kenton, retraced their way through the wilder- 
ness to Virginia; doubtless the first trip from Northern Kentucky to Virginia 
by land, if we except the wonderful escape of Mrs. Ingles and the Dutch 
woman from Indian captivity at Big Bone Lick, in 1756. 

^This incident, so characteristic of the vicissitudes of frontier life, de- 
serves fuller mention, and there will be no fitter place than here. Mrs. Mary 
Ingles, her two little boys, and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Draper, were taken 
prisoners by the Shawanee Indians, at their homes in what is now Montgom- 
ery county, Virginia, in 1756. They were carried down the Kanawha, and 
' to the mouth of the Scioto, where Portsmouth ngw stands. She here became 
popular among the Indians by making superior garments out of some fancy 
goods brought in by French traders. She escaped running the gauntlet, 
which Mrs. Draper was compelled to do. She was cruelly separated from 
her children, and resolved to escape, if opportunity came. An Indian party 
setting out for Big Bone Lick to make salt, she was taken along, together 
with an old Dutch woman, who had been years a captive. Though over one 
hundred miles farther from home, she obtained the consent of her captive 
companion to a plan of escape. Obtaining the privilege of going to the 
woods for grapes, the two women managed to secure blankets, a tomahawk, 
and a knife. Finding the Ohio river, they followed up the valley of the 
same and passed the mouth of Scioto, on the opposite side, after five days. 
Finding a horse browsing, and some corn raised here by the Indians, they 
put a sackful on the horse and continued on to the Big Sandy. This river 
being too deep to ford, they followed up its banks until they made a crossing 
on the drift-wood. The horse, unfortunately, fell among the logs, and they 
were compelled to leave him to his fate. All stores soon were exhausted, 
and they were reduced to a diet of wild grapes, walnuts, and pawpaws. 
Their privations and sufferings increased, until the old Dutch woman, becom- 
ing frantic with hunger and exposure, threatened, and did attempt, the life 
of Mrs. Ingles. Escaping her fury, she kept herself from view under the 
banks of the Kanawha. Luckily, she found an old canoe, and managed to 
paddle across to the other bank, in sight of her dangerous companion, who 
now implored her to return to her rescue with beseeching promises, but in 
vain. Exhausted and weary, she bent her tired steps toward home, and 
finally, at the end of forty days of indescribable peril and privations, she 
reached the friendly cabin of an old neighbor, where tender sympathy and 
care put an end to these. A party went out and brought in safely the old 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 53. 



28 . HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Dutch woman to the settlement. Mrs. Ingles died in 1813, aged eighty-four 
years. Her family was most noted; her daughters married men of distinc- 
tion, and a numerous posterity yet hold her in honored remembrance. 

There were probably other adventurers in Kentucky during this eventful 
year of 1773 whose names and deeds have escaped the pen of the historian. 
We have introduced to the reader the honored names, and recorded the 
heroic devotion and deeds, of the representative pioneers who formed the 
vanguard, and who blazed the way to future conquest and empire of the first 
civilization, whose germs were planted amid travails and watered in tears, in 
the great valley of the Mississippi, beyond the mountain barrier. 

With the clo=e of 1773, we will be surprised to find the most radical 
changes in the current of events, which in a few months drove homeward 
from her borders all the hunters, surveyors, and other adventurers who had 
come out during that year to Kentucky. The premonitions of war with 
England, which was soon to be anticipated with actual Indian hostilities of 
a formidable character, were heavy upon the spirits of the people. What 
effect were these cumulative troubles to have on the destinies of the new 
El Dorado of the western world, lying far away to the west? We pass into 
the revelations of 1774, and find an answer there, in part, to these inquiries. 



TOWN SITE OF HARRODSBURG LAID OFF. 



29 



CHAPTER YL 



Captain James Harrod leads a party of 
forty, and they "improve" at Harrods- 
burg and vicinity. 

Indian attack on these. 

Hancock Taylor mortally wounded by 
Indians. 

Miami tribes threaten to invade Vir- 
ginia. 

Boone and Michael Stoner sent by Gov- 



ernor Dunmore to warn in all frontiersmen 
from Kentucky. 

Harrod, Boone, and comrades return to 
Virginia and join the army to repel the 
Indians. 

Defeat of the latter in a decisive battle 
at the mouth of Great Kanawha. 

Many prepare to visit Kentucky in the 
spring of 1775. 



The spring of 1774 opened with promise that the advance parties of the 
previous year would be sustained by yet a larger following for the current 
year. ^In May, Captain James Harrod, with Abram Hite and James and 
Jacob Sandusky, led about forty men from the Monongahela country, in 
Virginia, down the Ohio river, and transiently camped on the present site of 
Cincinnati, and there felled the first tree known to have been cut down on 
that spot by the ax of a white man. Continuing their adventurous journey 
to the mouth of Kentucky river, they turned the prows of their little fleet 
into that stream and ascended the same to what is now Oregon Landing, in 
Mercer county. Disembarking there, they made their way through the for- 
est to a point near Salt river, where the McAfee party had made their first 
surveys on that river, and proceeding up the east side of same, they built 
a permanent camp on the present site of Harrodsburg, one hundred yards 
below the Big Spring, beneath the branches of an elm tree familiar to many 
persons of to-day. 

From this rendezvous, the men dispersed in small squads, to select for 
themselves suitable settlements, and to build on such locations improvement 
cabins. These latter were known as "lottery cabins," as they were appor- 
tioned among the men by lot. Thus, John Crow, James Brown, and others 
secured lottery cabins in the vicinity of Danville; James Wiley three miles 
east of Harrodsburg, and James Harrod at Boiling Spring, six miles south. 
On the 1 6th of June, Harrod's and Hite's men together laid off a town site 
at Big Spring camp, where they had before erected the first log cabin built 
in Kentucky; giving to each man a half-acre lot and a ten-acre outlot. The 
jirst name given to this place was Harrodstown, and finally it became known 
as Harrodsburg. Near the east end of the town, John Harman made a 
clearing, and there planted and raised the first corn that was known to have 
grown in Kentucky. About the 20th of July, three or four of Harrod's 

I Collins, Vol. II., pp. 605, and 517-18. 



3© HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

men, who seem to have been out on a survey, were resting and refreshing 
themselves at a large spring, some thiee miles below Harrodstown, when 
they were ambushed and fired on by Indians. Jared Cowan was killed, 
Avhile Jacob Sandusky and a comrade, believing that the whole command 
had been surprised, made their way to the falls. Descending the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers in a bark canoe, they returned to Philadelphia by sea, and 
thence home. A fourth man of the party got back to camp with the intelli- 
gence of the attack. Captain Harrod, at the head of a company, went 
down and buried Cowan, and secured his papers. ^ 

About the same period, Douglas, who had returned to Kentucky with his 
men, v/as engaged surveying lands on Elkhorn, Hickman, and Jessamine 
creeks, on the opposite side of Kentucky river. Also, John Floyd and Han- 
cock Taylor led survey parties, locating lands by virtue of military warrants, 
in Woodford and Fayette counties, and along the Ohio river to the falls. In 
the latter part of July, Hancock Taylor, whose brother Richard was the father 
t)f President Zachary Taylor, while surveying near the mouth of Kentucky 
river, was shot and seriously wounded by the Indians. ^ He died a few days 
after, while being borne back on the return to Virginia, and was buried 
two miles south of the present site of Richmond. Thus early, amid the 
opening incidents of pioneer days, was offered up to the atrocious spirit of 
savage warfare one of the noblest, most enterprising, and promising men 
of the heroic period that gave germ and birth to transmontane civilization. 
He was an honored member of a distinguished family that, from its numer- 
ous branches, has given to both Virginia and Kentucky many worthy citizens, 
who have reflected honor upon their generation in varied responsible callings 
of life. His memory deserves the tribute of our praise, though his dawning 
reputation and his chosen mission found a tragic end, almost at their incep- 
tion. 

In the drift of events which have made up the narrative of history for 
1774, a storm-cloud had gathered, whose ominous threatenings aroused the 
colonial government of Virginia to a sense of impending danger, and whose 
fury was destined to be spent on the border settlements in the Ohio valley. 
The Miami tribes of Indians, on the north side of the river, watched with 
angry jealousy the continued intrusion and usurpation by the whites of their 
favorite hunting-grounds. This passionate feeling was warmed into a spirit 
of violent resistance by the irritating remembrance that they had been ignored 
in the treaty of Stanwix, under the demands of the Six Nations, and that 
both their tribal dignity and rights had been humiliated; and that, so far, the 
white party to the treaty had failed to appease with the gratuities which had 
been promised and were expected. Some massacres of peaceful Indians on 
the upper Ohio were reported, and this served the pretext of preparation 
for open hostilities. Around the powerful Shawanees, as the central figure, 
and under the principal lead of the great chief. Cornstalk, a north-western 

: Collins. Vol. II., p. 518. :? Marshall, p. i?8; Collins, Vol. I[.,p. 2^3. 



BOONE S JOURNEY OF WARNINO. 3 I 

-confederation was formed, and fifteen hundred warriors, painted and armed 
for war, rendezvoused at the towns on the Scioto. The recent individual 
massacres in Kentucky and elsewhere were but the isolated raindrops that 
precede the emptying of overhanging clouds. 

^Amid the preparatory measures for inevitable hostilities, Governor Dun- 
more called upon Daniel Boone, whose fame as a frontiersman and scout 
was everywhere known, to undertake a journey through the wilderness, and, 
with warning of the dangers at hand, recall all hunters and survey parties 
from Kentucky. Boone selected Michael Stoner for his companion in this 
hazardous service. The latter was already trained in the arts and experience 
of backwoods life. Isaac Lindsay, with four others from South Carolina, 
made record of a visit to Kentucky in 1767, and following the waters of 
Cumberland to the mouth of Stone river, in Tennessee, there met Stoner 
and James Harrod, who had come down the Ohio from Fort Pitt, and 
reached that point, on a long hunt. From that time, Stoner seems to have 
been an active, though an unobtrusive, participant in the adventures and 
perils of the pioneer scenes that make up the early history of Kentucky. 

Boone and Stoner set out in June, through the pathless wilderness, and 
with that energy and endurance which marked their careers, pushed on to 
the falls of Ohio. Visiting and warning the explorers in turn, they reached 
Harrodstown on their route at the time the town plat was being laid off. In 
this work Boone seems to have taken an interest, as a lot was assigned to 
him, adjoining one to Evan Hinton, and on these two lots a double cabin 
was built, which was known indiscriminately as "Boone's cabin," or "Hin- 
ton's cabin," until it was burned, with others, by the Indians, in March, 
1777. Admonished by the raiding bands of savages, the murders of some 
of their comrades, and finally by the warning message of Lord Dunmore 
through Boone and Stoner, Harrod and Hite, with all their comrades, by the 
closing days of July were on their return march to Virginia. They buried 
their hopes and ambitions for a brief while, and left the untamed wilderness 
once again to the solitudes of centuries, which they had so lightly and so 
briefly disturbed with the crack of the rifle and the ring of the ax. Should 
they ever come again? — to conquer, to possess, to enjoy? 

The latter part of August, Boone and his returning friends reached Vir- 
ginia, he and Stoner having made the trip, twice through the wilderness and 
twice over the mountains, of eight hundred miles, in sixty days. At this 
time. Governor Dunmore had called into the field a force of three thousand 
regulars and volunteers, to meet the Indian army threatening to cross the 
Ohio and invade Virginia. The governor commissioned Captain Boone to 
take charge of three forts on the Kanawha frontier. Dunmore, as chief in 
command, concentrated the main army at Fort Pitt. General Andrew 
Lewis, skilled in border warfare, led eleven hundred men of the left wing, 
•composed of veteran pioneers and Indian fighters, made up mainly of the 

1 Butler, p. 27; Hartley's Daniel Boone ; Boone's Narrative ; History of the Backwoods. 



32 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

settlers, across the mountains to the mouth of Great Kanawha. Here he met 
the invading army of the Indians, fifteen hundred strong, and defeated them 
in the sanguinary battle of the Point, on the loth of October. The van- 
quished warriors retreated across the Ohio, and to their towns on the Scioto. 
The McAfees and their men, Harrod and Hite and their men, and most of 
the Kentucky explorers, were actively engaged as volunteers in this short 
campaign. Their unerring rifles did execution in the sanguinary battle which 
had such important bearing on the future of the great West. The disaster of 
Braddock's defeat, near Fort Pitt, but a few years before, brought about by 
foolish pride and conceit of a military martinet in refusing the warnings and 
counsels of Washington, and the inefficiency of unpracticed regular troops 
against the tactics of savage warfare, was yet fresh in the memories of the 
colonists. They apprehended a like possible result under the lead of Lord 
Dunmore and the regulars under him. This feeling hastened the march of 
General Lewis across the mountains, and precipitated the battle by the back- 
woods veterans of the left wing. Governor Dunmore, soon after the defeat, 
crossed his army below Pittsburgh and marched to the Indian towns, and 
there received their capitulations. A treaty was negotiated, in which the 
Shawanees and their confederates again agreed to give up all title to the 
country south of the Ohio, and all claim to it as a privileged hunting-ground. 
The results of this short war in several ways promised most auspiciously 
to the future colonization of Kentucky. The men of the hunting and sur- 
vey parties became, for some months, the army comrades of many colonial 
citizens, to whom they pictured, in radiant colors, the beauty and attractions 
of the new land of their adoption and adventure. The fever of emigration 
again became epidemic, and many new recruits began their preparations to 
follow the dim trail of the first pioneers, who had blazed the way, in the 
coming spring. Again, now that the Indians were signally defeated, and a 
treaty of peace made, they hoped that the settlers would in future build 
their homes and fortunes without the hazards and dangers of savage assaults. 
Vain hope! Well for the posterity of to-day, that the veil of mystery and 
silence that obscured the future was silver lined with cheerful hues, and that 
there were hearts of faith and stern resolve to lift it to the view of history 
in the fullness of time. 



PROCLAMATION OF GOVERNOR DUNMORE. 



33 



CHAPTER VII. 



Obstructions removed, and new induce- 
ments attract many toward Kentucky. 

Treaties with Ohio tribes proclaimed ; 
also with the southern tribes. 

Transitory nature of Indian titles. 

Indecisive results of tribal wars illus- 
trated in the Mohawk conquests. 

Kentucky a ground of dispute among 
all tribes from the Atlantic to the Missis- 
sippi. 

The Transylvania Company purchases 
Kentucky from the Cherokees. 

Judge Richard Henderson, the leader. 

A powerful land company. 

Boone negotiates the treaty of Wataga 
with Chief Oconistoto. 

"Boone's Road" made into the heart 
of Kentucky. 

He leads his party to Madison county. 

Attacked by Indians. 

Locates and founds Boonesborough. 

Urges Henderson to come on with aid. 

Many adventiarers alarmed, leave Ken- 
tucky. 



Meet Henderson coming in. 

Some return with him. 

His diary. 

Enlarges and strengthens Boonesbor- 
ough. 

A city plat laid off. 

The birth-place, the early life and char- 
acteristics of Daniel Boone. 

Born at Exeter, Bucks county, Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Boyish passion for hunting. 

School-boy incidents. 

Removed to North Carolina, on Yad- 
kin river. 

Born for an adventurous life. 

The hunter's adventures there. 

Disturbed state of the country. 

Extortions and insults of the English 
officials. 

"Regulators" resist these. 

The collision at Alamance, North Caro- 
lina, the first blow of the revolution. 

Boone's trust in God. 

Eulogy of him. 



Kentucky remained almost deserted until the early months of the spring 
of 1775, ^fter the recall of the explorers and settlers by Governor Dun- 
more, the year previous; yet the outlook was more inviting to emigration 
and enterprise than ever before, and busy notes of preparation engaged the 
attention of many during their stay in winter quarters for the time. Not 
only did the desire of the hunt, and of the founding of a new home and 
fortune in the cheap and fertile lands of the West, form the inspiration of 
motive to individual citizens; but persons of bold conception of plan and 
ability in execution began to confederate together and organize men and 
capital for vast land enterprises, looking to the amassing of great wealth 
with some, and most probably with a few, to the dream of empire itself 
The treaty at Chillicothe, but a few months before, gave assurance that there 
would, for a time at least, be immunity from the incessant murders and 
pillage of savage incursions. In January, 1775, Governor Duninore, by 
proclamation, announced that "the Shawanees, to remove all ground of 
future quarrel, have agreed not to hunt on this side of tlie Ohio river."' 



34 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

These tribes of the north were now doubly pledged to abstain from hostili- 
ties in the future. 

But the Cherokee nation, whose habitations were on the upper Tennessee 
waters, yet made claim, under the treaty of Hard Labor, in South Carolina, 
October 14, 1768, to this same territory, which the Six Nations had ceded 
to the English crown at Stanwix, they assuming the right of conquest over 
the Cherokees, as over the Shawanees. ^ The treaty of Lochaber, in South 
Carolina, with the Cherokees, October 18, 1770, confirmed this asserted 
right of the nation to the territory south of the Ohio and west of the Kana- 
wha as their hunting-grounds. Out of the apparent conflict and confusion 
of these triangular title claims of different tribal confederacies to the territory 
of Kentucky, it is sufficient to the purposes of our State history to know that 
the issue was an ancient and unsettled dispute between the Cherokees of the 
South and the Miamis of the North-west. The Mohawk confederacy, or Six 
Nations of the North-east, composed of the Mohawks, Tuscaroras, Oneidas, 
Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, claimed over both by virtue of conquest. 
During the treaty at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York, the Six Nations 
declared to Sir William Johnson, the English agent, who was eminent for 
his knowledge of Indian matters, that, "you who know all our affaijs must 
be sensible that our rights go much farther to the South than the Kanawha; 
and that we have a very good and clear title as far south as the Cherokee 
(Tennessee) river. This we can not allow to be the right of any other In- 
dians without doing wrong to our posterity, and acting unworthy of those 
warriors who fought and conquered it. We expect, therefore, that this, our 
right, will be considered.'"^ At this treaty were present representatives 
from both the Cherokee and Miami tribes, who acquiesced in the agreed 
stipulations, thus consenting to the superior claim of their former victors in 
war. Indeed, Hayward, in his history of Tennessee, relates an anecdote 
of the Cherokees who attended this treaty convention. Having killed some 
game for their support while on the route, on arrival at the treaty ground, 
they tendered the skins to the Six Nations, saying, ^'^ These are yours ; we 
killed them after passing the Big River'' — the name they gave the Tennessee. 

But we must not estimate the conquests of tribes of savages by other 
tribes, by the results of similar conquests among the civilized nations. Tlie 
Indians seldom made provisions to occupy and hold lands from which they 
might drive out other tribes. By habit, and from necessity, they were shift- 
ing and transitory in their war expeditions. Accustomed at such times to 
depend on such game as they could procure for their food supplies, a few 
days halting in any one locality served to destroy or drive off the wild game, 
and compel a change to new fields and fresh supplies. In that mutability so 
incident to Indian life, permanent order and stability must not be anticipated 
in their tribal conditions and relations. The dominion of one nation over 
another was often relaxed or removed by the shifting events of a few years. 

I Collins, Vol. U., p. 496. 2 Butler, pp. 8i and 378-^04. 



"TRANSYLVANIA COMPANY" ORGANIZED. 35 

The victor tribe in campaign and battle could at best do little more than kill 
a number of the vanquished hostiles, and disperse the great body of the sur- 
viving warriors to the sheltering and safe retreats of the forest. As soon as 
the victorious army was withdrawn upon the countermarch homeward, the 
scattered forces of the dispersed hostiles emerged from the forest recesses, 
and resumed their tribal force and habits again. Thus, the dominancy of 
the Mohawk tribes of the North-east, which was asserted with so much em- 
phasis and effect twenty years before, was at this date virtually extinct in 
all but the name. The Miamis on the north, and Cherokees on the south, 
had resumed possession and held sway practically as unquestioned as before 
the invasion of the Mohawks. Then, also, the encroachment of the white 
settlements, upon the vicinage of these latter Indians in western New York 
and Pennsylvania, had the usual effect to divert and enfeeble, and at the same 
time to dishearten them as assumed conquerors, by contrast with the pres- 
ence of a people superior to themselves in numbers, in prowess, and in the 
resources of war. 

Kentucky, by these coincidences of tribal wars and title claims, is thus 
presented to us as the converging point of rival contestants over the entire 
region ^m the Alleghany mountains to the Mississippi river, and from the 
lakes and St. Lawrence river to the gulf. In this trinity of disputed titles, 
there was enough to constantly irritate the jealous and passionate natures of 
the savage nations who were the defiant rivals, and to continue those fierce 
raids and bloody strifes throughout Kentucky which yet signalized her, as in 
the traditional past, as the "Dark and Bloody Ground." 

Of the many expeditionary measures for the colonization of Kentucky 
in inception and process of execution for the early spring of 1775, that 
organized under the name and style of the "Transylvania Company" was 
most conspicuous in the magnitude of its proportions, in the ability of its 
management, and in the means for its successful prosecution. During the 
previous autumn, Judge Richard Henderson, Nathaniel Hart, and several 
others of Granville and vicinity, North Carolina, gentlemen of large and 
varied resources, associated themselves into a land and improvement com- 
pany Avith the above title, for speculative venture on a gigantic scale in the 
new and expansive empire of the West. 

^This association had the advantage of a personal leadership of some 
political experience, well sustained by bold originality, that dared nothing 
less than the creation of power, of fortune, and of empire out of the bound- 
less waste and chaos of unsubdued nature. Quickly perceiving that the 
treaty with the Mohawks in 1768, and that just negotiated with the Miamis, 
left no Indian claimant to the territory of Kentucky but the Cherokees; and 
that the alienations between Great Britain and her colonies must soon result 
in war, thus leaving in doubt whether there would be again a jurisdiction more 
than in name to either over the vast transmontane wilderness, Judge Hen- 

iTrans. purchase — Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 13-15; Collins, Vol. II., pp 337 and 496. 



36 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

derson determined to base a purchase and transfer of an immense territory- 
in Kentucky on the title yet remaining in the Cherokees. In furtherance 
of this plan, he commissioned Daniel Boone to visit these Indians at their 
towns on the upper Tennessee waters, and open negotiations. Boone was 
successful in bringing about a favorable understanding and an early consum- 
mation. By appointment, Henderson, Boone, and friends met the Cherokee 
delegation led by Oconistoto, the first chief of the tribe, at Sycamore shoals, 
on the Wataga, a tributary of Holston river. The negotiations extended 
through twenty days, when, on the 17th of March, 1775, for ten thousand 
pounds sterling, there was ceded to the company all the tract of lands- 
afterward called by the name of Transylvania, and bounded as follows: 
" Beginning on the Ohio river at the mouth of Cantuckey, Chenoca, or what, 
the English call Louisa river, thence up said river and most northwardly 
fork of the same to the head spring thereof; thence, a south-east course to 
the top of Powell's mountain; thence westwardly, along the ridge of said 
mountain, unto a point from which a north-west course will strike the head 
spring of the most southwardly branch of Cumberland river; thence down 
said river, including its waters, to the Ohio river; thence up said river, as it 
meanders, to the beginning— which tract or territory of lands was, at the 
time of said purchase, and time out of mind had been, the land and hunting- 
grounds of the said Cherokee tribe of Indians." ^ 

Thus was it attempted to convey to the sovereign jurisdiction and con- 
trol of a few individuals by this treaty seventeen million acres of land in one 
body, or an area equal to two-thirds of the present territory of Kentucky. It 
embraced about all except that part lying north and east of Kentucky river, 
and which was most subject to be disputed and raided by the restless and 
warlike Miami tribes across the Ohio. An arrangement was effected with 
Boone by the proprietors of Transylvania for the opening of a trace or road 
for the travel of men and pack-horses from a i)oint on Holston river, not far 
from Wataga, to the mouth of Otter creek, on Kentucky river, the future 
site of Boonesborough. He, with a party composed of Squire Boone, Col- 
onel Richard Callaway, John Kennedy, and eighteen others, was joined by 
Captain William Twetty and his company of eight men, making thirty in all. 
With ax and tomahawk, they began the toilsome work of carving out the 
path through the wilderness. The narrative of one of the party, young 
Felix Walker, says: 2 "We marked the track with our hatchets until we 
reached Rockcastle river. Thence, for twenty miles, Ave had to cut our 
way through a country entirely covered with dead brush. The next thirty 
miles were through thick cane and reed, and as the cane ceased, they began 
to discover the pleasing and rapturous appearance of the plains of Kentucky. 
So rich a soil we had never seen before, covered with clover in full bloom, 
while the woods abounded in wild game. It appeared that nature, in her 

1 Butler, p. 13; Boone's Narrative ; Henderson's Journal March, 1775. 

2 Boone's Narrative ; Peck's Life of Boone; Collins, Vol. II., p. 498. 



FIRST FORT ERECTED IN KENTUCKY. 37 

profusion, had spread a feast for all that lived, both for the animal and 
rational world." It was cruel to so suddenly dispel the charm of these 
realities in view, and the visions of delight they promised in the future. 

The party had proceeded unmolested with their pioneer work until the 
morning of Saturday, the 25th day of March. Unconscious of danger, 
while lying asleep in camp at a point in Madison county, about fifteen miles 
south of Boonesborough, they were surprised and fired into by Indians just 
before the dawn of day. Captain Twetty was mortally wounded and his 
negro servant killed, and Felix Walker very seriously wounded. Captain 
Boone rallied his men and held his ground until daybreak, losing no prop- 
erty. On the 27th, two days after, an Indian party, perhaps the same, fired 
on a camp of six of Boone's men, killing two and wounding three, only a 
few miles distant from the first point. These unfortunate events necessitated 
the building of the first fort in Kentucky, five miles south of the present 
site of Richmond. The wounds of Twetty and Walker were too serious to 
admit of their removal. Boone and party hastily erected a stockade fort, or 
bullet-proof shelter, of logs, as a protection against further assaults of the 
savages, and placed the wounded men inside, and there nursed them until 
the 28th, when Captain Twetty died of his wounds and was buried in the 
enclosure. On the ist of April, they moved on to the Kentucky river, to 
the point selected to be fortified, bearing the wounded Walker between two 
horses. ^ On the fourth day after their arrival, another of Boone's men was 
killed by the ambushed savages. 

On the day of leaving Fort Twetty, as they had named this hasty struct- 
xare, Boone wrote to Colonel Henderson, urging that if he would thwart the 
designs of the Indians and hold the country, to hasten his presence with 
all the forces he could command to the aid of the men now in Kentucky. 
Henderson had left Wataga on the 20th of March, and in his journal, which 
he kept, shows strikingly the demoralizing effects these Indian butcheries 
were having upon the emigrants who had already set out to follow "Boone's 
Trace'' into Kentucky. We quote from his diary: 

'■^Saturday, April 8th. — Started about ten o'clock. Crossed Cumberland 
Gap. About four miles from it, met about forty persons returning from the 
Cantuckey on account of the late murders by the Indians. Could prevail 
on only one to return. Several Virginians who were with us turned back 
from here. 

'■^Siaiday, i6th. — About twelve o'clock, met James McAfee, with eigh- 
teen others, returning from Cantuckey. Of these, Robert McAfee, Samuel 
McAfee, and several others, were persuaded to turn back and go to Boones- 
borough." 

This was most discouraging, but did not dishearten or deter the men of 
resolute will, who had planned and were executing their mission. They 
were too much the men of destiny to pause upon the threshold. 

1 Collins, Vol. II., p. 406. 



38 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Boone and his companions, on arrival at the point selected, vigorously 
undertook the construction of two cabins, so connected with palisades as 10 
give it the defensive character of a stockade fort, locating the structure near 
an ancient and widespreading elm tree that became of historic note in after 
days. 1 Henderson and party arrived on the 20th, swelling the forces tc 
sixty guns, in pioneer phrase. After a survey of the ground by Colonel 
Henderson, the site and plans for more extensive works of defense were 
determined on, and all available forces set to work in the rapid construction 
of the same. 2 With so much energy did the men work that the main fori 
and its defenses were all complete on the 14th of June, less than two months 
after the arrival of the re-enforcements. At the instance of Judge Henderson, 
the first fortified camp ever built in Kentucky was christened '■'■ Boone sbor 
ough," in honor of the intrepid leader who had selected the site and pioneered 
the way to its settlement. As described by Collins, "It was situated adjacent 
to the river, with one of the angles resting on its bank near the water, anc 
extending from it in the form of a parallelogram. The length of the fort, 
allowing twenty feet for each cabin and opening, must have been about twc 
hundred and sixty, and the breadth one hundred and fifty feet." The mair 
houses were of hewn logs, and bullet-proof. They were square in forn 
and two stories in height, and one of these projected from each corner of 
the fort, the spaces between being occupied with intervening cabins and pali 
sades, thus protecting the four sides. The gates were on opposite sides. 
made of thick slabs of timber, and hung on wooden hinges. 

The site of the fort is now better indicated as near the crossing of the 
Kentucky river by the railroad recently constructed from Winchester to Rich 
mond, though it has long since lost importance as a trading point. Twent) 
acres were laid off into lots and streets, and fifty acres more were directed 
to be laid off, out of the full survey tract of six hundred and forty acres. 
Henderson found himself very much embarrassed on his first arrival, on this 
account. In his diary for April 21st, he says: "Captain Boone's companj 
having laid out most of the adjacent good lands into lots of two acres each, 
and taking it as it fell to each individual by lot, was in actual possession of 
them. After some perplexity, I resolved to erect a fort three hundred yards 
from the other, and on the opposite bank of a large lick. " 

BoonesboroiigJi was only established as an incorporate town, however, bj 
act of the Virginia Legislature, in October, 1779, "on the Kentucky river, 
in the county of Kentucky, for the reception of traders." At the same time, 
the Legislature established "at the town of Boonesborough, to the lane 
on the opposite shore, a ferry over the Kentucky river. The price for i. 
man, three shillings, and for a horse, the same; the keeping of which ferry, 
and the emoluments of the same, are hereby given and granted to Richarc 
Calloway." Thus was projected the foundations of a city in vision, not t( 
be realized in the future." 

iCoIhns.Vol II., p. 520 zCollins, Vol. II., p. 520. 



REMINISCENCES UF EARLY LIFE OF BOONE. 39 

The brightest dream of ambitious hope had now materialized to Daniel 
Boone. It is fit and opportune that we should pause here, and dwell for 
awhile upon the early life and incidents which form the mold in which was 
cast the character of a man, unsurpassed in history in simple heroism of 
unselfish purpose and action, in the modest sphere of life to which designing 
Providence undoubtedly called him. On the future page, as on the past, 
the name and deeds of this remarkable man must be prominent to the close 
of the pioneer era, or the history of Kentucky can not be written. Daniel 
Boone was born at Exeter, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of July, 
1732, according to the family record in the handwriting of his uncle, James 
Boone. ^ His parents were Squire and Sarah Boone, and he was one of 
eleven children, seven sons and four daughters. George and Mary Boone, 
the grandparents of Daniel, emigrated to America and arrived at Philadel- 
phia in October, 1717, from the vicinity of Exeter, England, bringing with 
them eleven children, nine sons and two daughters. He purchased a large 
tract of land in Bucks county, when it was yet on the frontier, and gave the 
name Exeter to it, after his native place in England, and by which the town- 
ship in Bucks county is yet known. Here, on the right bank of Delaware 
river, amid the almost unbroken forests, Boone learned his first lessons and 
acquired that passion for adventures of the hunt and the solitudes of the 
wilderness which was the ruling impulse of his life. Family reminiscence 
confirms the natural conjecture of the mind, that in earliest boyhood days, 
when he was able to shoulder the old flint-lock rifle, and to sight it at arm's 
rest at an object in view, he daily roamed the woods in search of sport and 
game. In boyish pride, he one day came in exulting, with the skin of a 
ferocious panther which he had brought down, just couched to spring upon 
him. While yet in early teens, he ventured to prolong his absence on the 
hunt for two days and nights. The alarmed family, joined by sympathizing 
neighbors, traversed the woods in search of the lost boy. They at length 
saw smoke rising from a rude structure in the distance, and on reaching it, 
found young Boone, in canip.^ The floor was covered with the skins of 
such animals as he had slain, while pieces of meat were roasting at the fire. 
Such was his beginning. 

His education was scant, indeed. We have the tradition of the border 
school-house of rude logs and puncheon seats on the dirt floor; of the school- 
master of fickle humors, and given to frequent use of the bottle for himself 
and of the rod for the children. Boone one day, chasing a rabbit into the 
hollow root of an old tree, thrust in his hand and brought out the dominie's 
bottle. Preparing himself by the next day, he put in it a powerful emetic, 
and quietly prepared the older boys for the crisis. They had all suffered 
from his cruel temper, and they now knew the cause of it. The result was 
a day of distressing sickness to the master, of disgust and revolt among the 

1 Hartley's Daniel Bocnc ; Peck's Boone. 

2 Adventures of Boone, the Kentucky Rifleman; Collins, Vol. II., p. 520. 



40 HISTORY OF KENTUCK.V. 

boys, and of the disruption of the school. In some way, Boone learned to 
read and write. Beyond this, his education was in that school of accom- 
plishment for his life-work — experience. In this, he graduated with the 
honors of his class. He was no truant or idler. Indolence and indifference 
never wrought out of crude humanity such a character as Boone, or Kenton, 
or Tecumseh ! 

About the year 1752, Boone's father moved the family to North Caro- 
lina, and settled on Yadkin river, near Holman's ford, some eight miles from 
Wilkesboro. Says the historian of that State: ' "In North Carolina, Daniel 
Boone was reared. Here his youthful days were spent; and here that bold 
spirit was trained which so fearlessly encountered the perils through which 
he passed in after life. His fame is part of her property, and she has 
inscribed his name on a town in the region where his youth was spent. His 
character was peculiar, and marks the age in which he lived." In the year 
1755, Boone was married to Rebecca Bryan, a i)retty, rustic maiden of the 
country, with whom he became enamored. To this wedlock were born nine 
children, five sons and four daughters. Of the sons, James and Israel fell 
in battle, slain by the hands of the common Indian foe; the latter at Blue 
Licks. 

The period of Boone's residence on the Yadkin was one of continued 
turbulence and unrest. The seven years' war with France, terminating with 
the capture of Quebec and the cession of Canada, in 1760, subjected the 
borders of Virginia to the horrors of Indian warfare from the Miami tribes, 
and of North Carolina to the same from the Cherokees of the South, all 
being allies of the French. Following the comparative quiet which for a 
time succeeded this treaty of peace and partial immunity from savage hos- 
tilities, "the colonists of the Carolinas, and of Virginia, had been steadily 
advancing to the West, and M'e can trace their approaches in the direction 
of the boundaries of Kentucky and Tennessee, to the base of the great 
Appalachian range." 

From Ramsey's annals of Tennessee, we have the historic account of the 
earliest known venture of Boone to the forests of the great West, in 1760. 
"At the head of one of the companies that visited the West this year came 
Daniel Boone, and traveled with them as low as where Abingdon now 
stands, and there left them." How far he penetrated the forest is not 
recorded; but "there is still to be seen on a beech tree standing in sight and 
east of the present stage-road leading from Jonesboro to Blountsville, and in 
the valley of Boone's creek, a tributary of Wataga, Tennessee, the following 
words, carved into the bark : 'Z>. Boone CillED A. BAR On Tree in ThE 
y EAR 1760:" 

Before the period of Boone's first long visit to Kentucky, the efferves- 
cence of discontent and irritant protest against the tyrannical exactions of the 
British crown, and the insulting intrusions and petty extortions of the foreign 

I Wheeler's " Historical Sketches of North Carolina." 



TYRANNIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY OPPOSED. 4I 

parasites of royalty who were placed in official authority over the colonists, 
were rife from New England to Georgia. The initial elements needed but 
time and extended power to formulate an exclusive aristocracy of an associa- 
tion of moneyed fortune, of official power, and of titled lineage, to live in 
luxury and usurpation by oppression and robbery of the people. 

They were already introducing the ostentatious style of living, in contrast 
to the simplicity of the citizenship. To support their extravagance of style, 
and their offensive and vulgar aping of the airs of aristocracy, these minions 
of power — magistrates, lawyers, clerks of courts, and tax-gatherers — imposed 
enormous fees for their services. ^ The Episcopal clergy, supported by a 
legalized tax on the people, as in England, not content with their salaries, 
charged extraordinary fees for special services. For a simple marriage ser- 
vice, the poor farmer was required to pay fifteen dollars, equal to fifty dollars 
now. Tax collections were enforced with extortionate expenses of litigation; 
while executions, levies, and distresses were of daily occurrence. Sheriffs 
demanded often more than double and treble the original debt, under threats 
of sheriffs' sales, and pocketed the gains. Scarcity of money is always inci- 
dent to a new country, and the cruel extortions became intolerable. 

Petitions to the governing powers for relief were treated with contempt, 
and in desperation, the people banded together for self-protection. The 
organizations were known as "Regulators," and they resolved ''to pay only 
such taxes as were agreeable to law and applied to the purposes therein 
named, and to pay no officer more than his legal dues.'' Out of this came 
strife and resistance to official proceedings, and finally, actual collision be- 
tween the Regulators and an armed force led by Governor Tryon, on the 
1 6th of May, 1771, at Alamance, in which the former were worsted. Thus, 
four years before the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, the war for inde- 
pendence may be said to have practically begun in North Carolina. 2 There 
■was no abatement to the outbreak of 1775. 

To the restless, daring, and independent spirit of Boone, these petty tyran- 
nies and outrages were intolerable, and doubtless had much to do in leading 
him and many comrades to seek liberty and immunity in the far-off refuge of 
the inviting wilderness. Through all the words that he has spoken or dic- 
tated to writers, there is an expression of trust in an over-ruling God, that 
leaves no doubt that the famous pioneer believed himself an agent in the 
hands of Providence for His work. Toward the close of his narrative, as 
dictated to and written by John Filson, in 1784, he says: "I can now say 
that I have verified the saying of an old Indian, who signed Colonel Hender- 
son's deed at the Wataga treaty. Taking me by the hand, at the delivery 
thereof, he said, ' Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I believe you 
will have much trouble in settling it.' My footsteps have often been marked 
with blood; and therefore, I can fully subscribe to its original name. Two 

1 Wheeler's Historical Sketches ; Hartley's Boone, pp. 27-28. 

2 Hartley's Boone, pp. 43-46; Wheeler's Sketches of North Carolina. 



42 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



darling sons and a brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also 
taken from me forty horses and an abundance of cattle. Many dark and 
sleepless nights have I been a companion for owls, and often scorched by 
the summer's sun and pinched by the winter's cold — an instrument ordained 
to setde the wilderness. " 

We would deem it incomplete to close this brief biographic sketch with- 
out introducing the fine passages of Marshall in eulogy of Boone and the 
noble comrades, who together passed through the crucial trials and perils 
of that pioneer experience which won from savage resistance an empire of 
crude territory, and wrought out from its exuberant chaos the six illustrious 
Commonwealths that lie upon either side of the Ohio river, and within the 
valley of the Mississippi. These were the toilers who established the founda- 
tions for the peaceful homes of millions of posterity, and the State-builders 
who erected empire and authority for the guardianship of society's most 
sacred trusts. 

Says the historian: i "To appreciate the merit of an enterprise, we should 
have in view the difficulties which opposed its execution. Thus, we judge 
of Cecrops, the founder of Athens; of Cadmus, the founder of Boetia; of 
Danaus, the founder of Argolis. Thus, also, eulogiums have been mul- 
tiplied and enhanced on Romulus and his hardy followers. In a similar 
manner, we speak of the first settlers in America. No less than these, have 
Boone, and others hereafter to be named, merited the appellation of found- 
ers; and no less do they deserve the notice of posterity. 

"Among the first of these was Daniel Boone, who did not, like Moses of 
Egyptian memory, find himself the leader of a host of armed followers, 
impelled by fear or love of the Lord to obey His commands in a journey 
through the wilderness, though he traversed one equally as extensive and as 
savage as that of Zin. His attendants were his voluntary comrades, who, 
without a miracle, reposed their confidence in his sagacity and fortitude. 
Besides, the names of those heroes and legislators of antiquity have been- 
transmitted to us by the pens of profane historians and poets who, availing 
themselves of the fictions of past times, have amplified and embellished their- 
subjects with all the inventions of genius, the graces of oratory, and imagery 
of poetry; or else, under the influence of divine inspiration, the Prophet of 
Israel has astonished us with the narrative of the wonders he wrought, and 
which have come down to posterity as miracles. But Daniel Boone, yet 
living (1812), is unknown to his full fame. From the country of his choice, 
and of his fondest predilection, he has been banished by difficulties he knew 
not how to surmount, and is now a resident of Missouri, a Spanish territory. 
Nor will the lapse of brief time, in which fancy often finds her storehouse 
of materials for biography, permit the aid of imagination to illustrate his 
name with brilliant epithets, or otherwise adorn a narrative of simple facts. 
Yet history shall do him justice, and those who come after him may balance 

1 Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 16-18. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BOONE. 43 

his relative claims to the regards of posterity. Without the incumbrance of 
worldly goods to give him local attachments, and without the illumination 
of science to enable him to shine in society, at the age of eighteen he found 
himself possessed of high health and a vigorous constitution, supported by 
great muscular strength and nervous activity. His sole reliance was on his 
own arm, and that had been taught to poise the rifle, rather than to use the 
plow. He delighted to chase on foot the wild deer, and this propensity 
often led him to places remote from the habitations of men. Accustomed 
to be much alone, he acquired the habit of contemplation and of self-posses- 
sion. His mind was not of the most ardent nature, nor does he ever seem 
to have sought knowledge through the medium of books. Naturally, his 
sagacity was considerable, and as a woodsman he was soon expert, and ulti- 
mately pre-eminent. Far from ferocity, his temper was mild, humane, and 
charitable ; his manners gentle, his address conciliating, and his heart open to 
friendship and hospitality. Yet his most remarkable quality was an enduring 
and imperturbable fortitude. " The writer was familiar with Boone. 

Such is a portraiture of the modern Nimrod and dauntless warrior who 
for over fifty years led the vanguard of the pioneers of civilization from the 
slopes of the AUeghanies westward across the waters of the majestic Missis- 
sippi, and on to the plains beyond that stretch away to the base of the Rocky 
mountains. Of the toilers who have builded empires and borne forward 
the advancing wave of civilization, history records no greater man or truer 
hero, within his sphere, than simple, unostentatious Daniel Boone. 



44 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Judge Richard Henderson. 

Life and character. 

Opens a land office at Boonesborough. 

He issues patents in the name of the 
Transylvania Company. 

A great land monopoly designed. 

Henderson's diary. 

Plan of government by delegates ar- 
ranged. 

The grand old elm. 

Delegates assemble under its shade. 

First legislation in Kentucky. 

Code of laws passed. 

First divine service under the elm. 

Reduced to a diet of wild game. 

Journal of the proceedings of the dele- 
gates. 

Compact between the proprietors and 
the people. 

Lordly and crafty usurpations. 

Protest by the people. 



Defense of the company. 

The veto power. 

Disputed jurisdiction of Virginia after 
the Declaration of Independence. 

Delegate assembly never meets again. 

The Transylvania Company usurpation 
disintegrates under the growth of opposing 
sentiment and interest. 

They fail of recognition by the Conti- 
nental Congress. 

Remarkable scene at Wataga. 

Origin of the title, "Dark and Bloody 
Ground." 

Governors of Virginia and North Caro- 
lina issue proclamations against the com- 
pany. 

Each of these States grants the company 
a bonus of two hundred thousand acres. 

Alienation of Kentucky from Virginia 
and the Confederation of States, thus de- 
feated. 



Our narrative introduces to us here a character very different from that 
of Boone, but an associate of the latter who made himself a most prominent 
and important factor in the settlement of Kentucky. Richard Henderson 
was porn in 1735, in Hanover county, Virginia, and emigrated with his 
parents to Granville county, North Carolina He was reared in poverty, 
■and his education was neglected almost wholly. Possessed of natural bright- 
ness and vigor of mind, and ambitious for preferment, he improved every 
opportunity with remarkable energy. From the position of constable, he suc- 
ceeded to that of deputy sheriff under his father, and in the faithful and 
diligent discharge of the duties of these offices, he acquired that experience 
that made him distinguished in after life. He prepared himself for the pro- 
fession of law, and was admitted by Chief-Justice Berry to practice at the bar. 
Of his career, Collins says: ^ "His energy and spirit knew no rest. He soon 
rose to the highest ranks of his profession, and honors and wealth followed. 
Under the law of 1767, providing for a chief-justice and two associates for 
the province. Governor Tryon the next year appointed Henderson one of 
the associate justices. While holding the Superior court at Hillsboro, in 
September, 1770, the 'Regulators' assembled in the court-yard, insulted some 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 337. 



HENDERSON ESTABLISHES A LAND OFFICE. 45 

of the gentlemen of the bar, and in a riotous manner went into the court- 
house and forcibly carried out and cruelly beat some of the attorneys. Judge 
Henderson, finding it impossible to hold court, left Hillsboro in the niglit. 
The troubled times shut up the courts." 

Such are the antecedents of the bold and adventurous spirit who con- 
ceived and planned the gigantic enterprise of purchasing, through an only 
remaining and shadowy Indian title, over two -thirds ot the territory of 
Kentucky, of colonizing it with emigrant settlers, and of founding on its 
jurisdiction a sovereignty of government midway between the claims of Great 
Britain on the north, of colonial Virginia on the east, and of the Spanish 
Government on the south and west. The impending declaration of inde- 
pendence by the thirteen colonies, and the issues of the inevitable war of 
the Revolution, made a golden opportunity of the hour and the occasion, 
and Henderson and his associates hazarded fifty thousand dollars on the 
purchase of the seventeen millions of acres. 

Colonel Henderson, soon after his arrival in the spring of 1775, opened 
•a land office at Boonesborough, and began the issuance of warrants, or 
orders of survey, under the purchased title and in the name of the "Proprie- 
tors of the Colony of Transylvania." The price of lands, until June i, 
1776, was fixed at thirteen and one-third cents per acre. Besides this there 
was an annual quit-rent of half a cent per acre reserved, but not to begin 
until 1780. At these rates, any settler before June, 1776, was privileged to 
take up not over six hundred and forty acres for himself, and for each taxa- 
ble person he might take with him and settle there, three hundred and twenty 
acres more. Any person who should not immediately settle might buy not 
over five thousand acres at seventeen cents per acre. ^ 

The effect of these provisional measures was to encourage and largely 
increase the litde stream of immigration that had set in during this spring to 
Kentucky. It is estimated that there were about three hundred men at and 
in the vicinity of Boonesborough, St. Asaphs, Harrodsburg, and other points 
convenient, by June. The tide of Henderson & Company seems to have 
been at first very generally recognized, though there was manifested some 
jealousy and dissatisfaction at what was deemed usurpation. By December 
following no less than five hundred and sixty thousand acres of land were 
entered in the company's office at Boonesborough. All mineral lands were 
reserved by the company, and in every deed the grantee bound himself to 
pay "one moiety or half part of all gold, silver, copper, lead, or sulphur 
mines, etc." 

Butler says: 2 "Had this company retained its title, Kentucky would, 
within their jurisdiction or purchase, have been under a quit-rent forever. 
The penalty for default of paying the annual rent was a forfeiture of the 
land, and the right reserved by the company to re-enter said land and regrant 
the same to any other person. It is much to be doubted whether the high 

1 Collins, Vol. II.. p 512. 2 Butler, p. 31. 



46 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

temper of the Western people would have submitted to a state of things 
which had been a constant source of heart-burnings in the elder colonies. 
At the same time, in justice to this great company, it must be observed that 
it furnished, although for sale, all the supphes of gunpowder and lead with 
which the inhabitants defended themselves and their families. Indeed, the 
books of Henderson & Company exhibit accounts for these articles with all 
the inhabitants of the country, in the years 1775-6, while they are credited 
with various items, as cutting the road to Cantuckey, hunting and ranging, 
etc. The prices of articles in these accounts afford some curious comparisons 
with those of the present times. Powder was charged at two dollars and 
sixty-six cents per pound, and lead at a shilling, while labor was credited at 
thirty-three or fifty cents per day for ranging, hunting, or working on roads. 
These accounts remain unclosed upon the books in every instance, showing 
a condition of no little indebtedness for the colonists of Transylvania to the 
great proprietors." 

We can not make this episode of our history, which records the first 
attempt at an independent government westward of the Alleghanies, more 
interesting than to quote from Henderson's journal, embracing the brief 
incidents of its formation, and which introduces us very naturally to the 
living details of incidents which characterized the men and events of the 
day: 

" Wednesday, May J, i^TS- — Captain John Floyd arrived here, conducted 
by one Joe Drake, from a camp on Dick's river, where he had left thirty of 
his company from Virginia, and said that he was sent by the company to 
know on what terms they might settle our lands. Was much at a loss on 
account of this gentleman's arrival and message, as he was surveyor of Fin- 
castle county under Colonel Preston (a rival jurisdiction). 

"Sunday, May jth. — Went into the woods after a stray horse; staid all 
night, and on our return found Captain Harrod and Colonel Slaughter, from 
Harrodstown, on Dick's river. It is, in fact, on Salt river, and not on 
Dick's river. Slaughter and Harrod seemed very jocose, and in great good 
"humor. 

"Monday, 8th. — Was very much embarrassed by a dispute between the 
above. The last-mentioned gentleman, with about forty men, settled on 
Salt river last year (1774), was driven off by Indians, joined the army under 
Colonel Lewis that fought the battle of Point Pleasant, October loth, with 
thirty of his men, and being determined to live in this country, had come 
down this spring from the Monongahela, accompanied by about fifty men, 
most of them young men without families. They had come on Harrod's 
invitation, and had possession some time before we got here. 

"After much dispute about the respective claims of Slaughter and Har- 
rod for lands to be apportioned to their respective companies, in order to 
divert the debate on this irritating subject, a plan of government by popular 
representation was proposed. 



COLONEL HENDERSON'S JOURNAL. 47 

^'The reception this plan met with from these gentlemen, as well as Cap- 
tain John Floyd, a leading man on Dick's river, gave us great pleasure, and 
therefore we immediately set about the business. 

"Appointed Tuesday, May 23d, at Boonesborough, for the meeting of 
■delegates, and accordingly made out writings for the different towns or settle- 
ments to sign. For the want of a little obligatory law, or some restraining 
authority, our game soon — nay, as soon as we got here, if not before — was 
•driven off very much. As short a distance as good hunters thought of getting 
meat was fifteen or twenty miles; nay, sometimes they were obliged to go 
thirty miles, though by chance, once or twice a week, buffalo was killed 
Avithin five miles of the camp. The wanton destruction of game gives great 
uneasiness. 

'■'■Saturday, May ijth. — No scouring of floors, sweeping of yards, or 
scalding bedsteads here. 

"About fifty yards from the river (Kentucky), behind my camp, and a 
fine spring a little to the west, stands one of the finest elms that perhaps 
nature has ever produced. The tree is produced on a beautiful plain, sur- 
rounded by a turf of fine white clover, forming a green to the very stock. 
The trunk is about four feet through to the first branches, which are about 
nine feet from the ground. From thence, it regularly extends its large 
tranches on every side, at such equal distances as to form the most beautiful 
tree the imagination can suggest. The diameter of the branches from the 
extreme ends is one hundred feet, and every fair day it describes a semi- 
circle on the heavenly green around it of upwards of four hundred feet in 
circuit. At any time between the hours of ten and two, one hundred per- 
sons may commodiously seat themselves under the branches. This divine 
tree, or rather, one of the many proofs of the existence from all eternity of 
its Divine Author, is to be our church and council chamber. Having many 
things on hands, we have not had time to erect a pulpit and seats, but hope, 
"by Sunday sevennight, to perform divine service in a public manner, and 
that to a set of scoundrels who scarcely believe in God or fear a devil, if we 
are to judge from most of their looks, words, or actions. 

'■'Tuesday, May 2jd. — Delegates met from every town (Harrodsburg, 
Eoiling Spring, St. Asaphs, and Boonesborough), pleased with their stations, 
and in great good humor. 

" Wednesday, 24th. — Convention met (under the divine elm) for the col- 
ony of Transylvania; sent a message acquainting me that they had chosen 
Colonel Slaughter chairman, and Matthew Jewett clerk, of which I approved, 
and went and opened business by a short speech. 

'■'Saturday, 2'jth. — Finished the convention in good order. Everybody 
pleased. 

"Sunday, 28th. — Divine service, for the first time in Kentucky, was per- 
formed by the Rev. John Lythe, of the Church of England. Most of the 
delegates returned home. 



48 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

^^ Monday, June 5th. — Made out commissions for Harrodsburg, Boiimg: 
Spring settlement, and St. Asaphs, both military and civil. 

'■'■Friday, i6th. — Continue eating meat, without bread. 

^^Saturday, ijth. — Michael Stoner, our hunter, not returned; was ex- 
pected yesterday. No meat." 

There is preserved to us a copy of the original "^^^ Journal of the Proceed- 
ings of the House of Delegates or Representatives of the Colony of Transylvania, 
begun on Tuesday, the 23d of May, in the year of our Lord, 1775, and in the 
fifteenth year of the reign of his Majesty, King of Great Britain." 

From this journal, we quote: "It being certified to us here this day, 
by the secretary, that the following persons were returned as duly elected 
for the several towns and settlements, to-wit: For Boonesborough — Squire 
Boone, Daniel Boone, William Cocke, Samuel Henderson, William Moore, 
and Richard Callaway; For Harrodsburg — Thomas Slaughter, John Lythe^ 
Valentine Harman, and James Douglas; For Boiling Spring — James Harrod, 
Nathan Hammond, Isaac Hite, and Azariah Davis; For St. Asaphs — John 
Todd, Alexander Spottswood Dandridge, John Floyd, and Samuel Wood. 
All answering on roll-call at the assembling of the delegates, with the excep- 
<;ion of William Cocke, the House unanimously chose Thomas Slaughter 
chairman and Matthew Jewett clerk. After divine service was performed by 
Rev. John Lythe, the Assembly formally proceeded to business." 

On the 25th to the 27th, the following bills were passed and signed by 
the proprietors of Transylvania on behalf of the company, and by the 
chairman, Colonel Thomas Slaughter, on behalf of himself and the other 
delegates: 

First — An act for establishing courts of judicature, and regulating the 
practice therein. 

Second — For regulating the militia. 

Third — The punishment of criminals. 

Fourth — To prevent profane swearing and Sabbath-breaking. 

Fifth — For writs of attachment. 

Sixth — Ascertaining clerks' and sheriffs' fees. 

Seventh — To preserve the range. 

Eighth — Improving the breed of horses. 

Ninth — For preserving game. 

Then it was ^'■Ordered: That the convention be adjourned until the first 
Thursday in September next, to meet at Boonesborough." 

By far the most ominous proceeding of the convention was the action of 
a commitiee appointed to determine the compact between the proprietors 
of Transylvania and the people, which was drawn and signed as follows: 

"Whereas, It is highly necessary for the peace of the proprietors and 
the security of the people of this colony, that the powers of the one and the 
liberties of the other be ascertained, we, Richard Henderson, Nathaniel 

I Henderson's Journal. 



TRANSYLVANIA COMPACT WITH THE PEOPLE. 49 

Hart, and John Luttrell, on behalf of ourselves and the other proprietors of 
the colony of Transylvania, of the one part, and the representatives of the 
people of said colony, in convention assembled, of the other part, do most 
solemnly enter into the following contract and agreement, to-wit : 

'■'■First — That the election of delegates in this colony be annual. 

"•Second — That the convention may adjourn and meet again on their own 
adjournment; provided, that in cases of great emergency the proprietors may 
call together the delegates before the time adjourned to, and if a majority be 
not in attendance, they may dissolve them and call a new one. 

'•'•Third — That to prevent delay of business and dissension, one proprietor 
shall act for the whole, or some one delegated by them for that purpose, who 
shall always reside in the colony. 

'■'•Fourth — That there be perfect religious freedom and toleration, pro- 
vided, that the propagation of any doctrine or tenets, evidently tending to 
the subversion of our laws, shall for such conduct be amenable to and pun- 
ished by the civil courts. 

"•Fifth — That the judges of the superior or supreme courts be appointed 
by the proprietors, but be supported by the people, and to them be answera- 
ble for their malconduct. 

'■'■Sixth — That the quit-rents never exceed two shillings per hundred 
acres. 

'■'■Seventh — That the proprietors appoint a sheriff, who shall be one of 
three persons recommended by the court. 

'■'■Eighth — That the judges of the superior court have, without fee or 
reward, the appointment of the clerks of this colony. 

'■'Ninth — That the judges of the inferior courts be recommended by the 
people and approved of by the proprietors, and by them commissioned. 

'■'■Tenth — That all other civil and military officers be within the appoint- 
ment of the proprietors. 

'■'■Eleventh — That the office of surveyor-general belong to no person inter- 
ested or a partner in this purchase. 

'■'■Twelfth — That the legislative authority, after the strength and maturity 
of the colony will permit, consist of three branches, to-wit: The delegates 
or representatives chosen by the people; a council not exceeding twelve 
men, possessed of landed estate, who reside in the colony; and the proprie- 
tors. 

'■'Thirteenth — That nothing with respect to the number of delegates from 
any town or settlement shall hereafter be drawn into precedent, but that the 
number of representatives shall be ascertained by law, when the state of 
the colony will admit of amendment. 

'■'■Fourteenth — That the land office be always open. 

"Fifteenth — That commissions without profit be granted without fee. 

"Sixteenth — That the fees and salaries of all officers appointed by the 
proprietors be settled and regulated by the laws of the country. 



5° 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



'^Seventeenth — That the convention have sole power of raising and appro- 
priating all public moneys and electing their treasurer. 

^'Eighteenth — That for a short time, till the state of the colony will permit 
to fix some plan of holding the convention which shall be permanent, the 
place of meeting shall be agreed upon between the proprietors and the con- 
vention. 

"To the faithful and religious and perpetual observance of all and every 
of the above articles, the said proprietors and the chairman of the said 
convention have hereunto interchangeably set their hands and affixed their 
seals, the 27th day of May, 1775. 

"Richard Henderson \^Seal\ 
"Nathaniel Hart YSeal\ 
"John Luttrell \^Seal\ 
"Thomas Slaughter, Chairman \_Seal\" 
Throughout, these proceedings evince the spirit of lordly assumption and 
crafty self-seeking, which were instinctive with royalty and its patronizing 
favoritism to an exclusive few. It manifested itself in the extortions and 
wrongs with which the minions of the English Government outraged the 
colonists, and finally drove them into the war of the Revolution. Too many 
rights and powers were reserved in this compact to admit of a government 
of the people and by the people ; the pervading principle of republicanism, 
which alone could satisfy the common sentiment of personal and civil liberty. 
Only a little time and reflection were needed to awaken discontent among 
the settlers. By that fatality which seems ever coincident with enterprise 
founded in uncertain justice and unstable tenure, the advantages gained by 
this concession of the delegates to the proprietors tempted the latter to the 

imprudent step of announcing the in- 
creased rates for lands, and for the fees 
of entry and survey, by an appreciable 
percentage. 

These and other irritant causes led the 
settlers to open protest. Virginia had, 
on the 4th of July, united with the other 
colonies in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and all were at war with Great 
Britain. Yet Kentucky was held by 
many to be as much a part of Fincastle 
county, Virginia, now as before separa- 
tion from the mother country. Under this 
jurisdiction of Virginia, the discontented 
%%tl^a:ft?:'Jiy''t:^^^^^^^^^ settlers sought for a refuge. Feeling 

'^i:kiTitveTa'l'fd^^^^^^^^ '^"d action culminated in December in a 

-Traveler's Rest,- the old Governor Shelby formal petition to the General Assembly 

homestead , yet owned by Mrs. Hart. By i -' 

white and colored, he lived and died honored ^f Virginia. sisUCd bY eiffhtv-four of the 
and respected.] » ' & j o . 




UNCLE DiCK 
[ The first slave brought to Boonesborough 



SETTLERS PETITION VIRGINIA FOR RELIEF. 5 1 

settlers, protesting against the usurpations of the proprietors, and setting 
forth grievances on account of the extortions of the same, and asking the 
Government of Virginia to assert and maintain its jurisdiction over this part 
of Fincastle county. Many of these signers were the best men among the 
settlers, and some even were delegates in the Boonesborough convention. 
From the petition, we quote in part as follows : 

"But your petitioners have been greatly alarmed at the late conduct of 
those gentlemen in advancing the price of the purchase money from twenty 
to fifty shillings per hundred acres. At the same time, they have increased 
the fees of entry and surveying to a most exorbitant rate, and by the short 
period fixed for taking up the lands, even on these extravagant terms, they 
plainly evince their intention of rising in their demands as settlers increase, 
or their insatiable avarice shall dictate. * * * As we are anxious to 
■concur in every respect with our brethren of the united colonies for our just 
rights and privileges, as far as out infant settlement and remote situation will 
admit of, we humbly expect and implore to be taken under the protection of 
the honorable convention of the colony of Virginia, of which we can not 
help thinking ourselves still a part, and request your kind interposition in 
our behalf, that we may not suffer under the rigorous demands and imposi- 
tions of the gentlemen styling themselves proprietors." i 

The animus of resistance, as well as the earnestness of protest, is breathed 
throughout. It is but the part of justice to permit the friends of Henderson 
to offer their defense against the charge in this petition, that the promoters 
of the Transylvania colony "plainly evince their intention of rising in their 
demands as the settlers increase or their insatiable avarice shall dictate." 
In the Virginia Calendar, John Williams is shown to have replied to this 
allegation, that the original purposes and propositions of the Transylvania 
Company were not changed. They had originally offered their lands to first 
settlers and improvers at minimum prices; but that privilege was announced 
to expire by limitation. With the increase of settlers, the assurance of greater 
safety, and the growing attractions of the country, the value of lands would 
naturally be enhanced, and this they had anticipated and set forth from the 
first. This statement of Williams was confirmed by Colonel John Floyd, 
Avhich entitles it to great weight and respect. 2 

In the matter of Virginia vs. Henderson, from the same authority, Nathan 
Henderson, brother of Richard, stated in his deposition that the Transyl- 
vania Company reserved the right of veto over any act of the improvised 
Legislature, and gave as a reason for it that it would be dangerous to their 
rights and interests in the property purchased at the Wataga treaty to sur- 
render the final and sovereign power of legislation to the people or their 
delegates. 3 Whether he referred to the provision in the compact between 
tji^ company and the people, by which the proprietors were made a third 

1 Hall's Sketches of History in the West, Vol. II., pp. 2-6-0 ' ' ' 

2 Virginia Calendar, Vol. I., p. 275. ' ^ 

3 Virginia Calendar, Vol. I., p. 307. 



52 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

arm of government, beside the Legislature and council, with power to con- 
cur or not in all acts, or to some further agreement not mentioned in the 
earlier histories, is not determined with certainty. 

There is a remarkable episode brought out in this same case of Virginia^ 
vs. Hendersoji, in the deposition of Sam Wilson. ^ There was much con- 
tention and dissent on the part of some of the Indians at Wataga, as to 
concessions to the Transylvania Company, and especially when the latter 
insisted on including all the territory south of the Kentucky river to the 
Cumberland. In the proceedings of the council. Dragging Canoe, a noted 
chief, arose and made an impassioned speech, in the delivery of which he 
turned to the white party, and lifting his arm and pointing his finger omi- 
nously to the north-west, sternly said: '■'■ Bloody ground T^ and then pausing a 
moment, he stamped his foot violently on the earth and continued, '■'and 
dark and difficult to settle!" 

In a few minutes, Oconistoto's squaw, whose suspicions were intensely 
excited by some person telling her that a dangerous advantage was being 
taken of her tribe in the terms urged, rushed frantically into the midst of 
the assembly, and by her wild and hysteric cries produced a panic in the 
proceedings. In a babel of confusion, the council was adjourned to another 
day. 

With some delay and trouble, confidence was enough restored to reas-- 
semble the parties and resume negotiations. Henderson boldly warned the 
Indians that unless Chenoca, or all the land south of Kentucky to the Cum- 
berland river was embraced, he would not open the goods for distribution as 
presents. The majority of the Indians yielded assent, and the treaty was 
finally concluded and duly ratified. 

We here recall the coincidence of the passage in the closing sections of 
Boone's autobiography, where he relates that at Wataga an old Indian chief, 
who signed Colonel Henderson's deed, took him by the hand at the delivery 
of the same, and said: "Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I 
believe you will have much trouble in settling it." This evidence of new 
light upon the question of the origin of the phrase, ' ' Dark and Bloody 
Ground," brought out in the State papers as published in the Virginia Calen- 
dar, is interesting. It affords strong presumptive evidence to the minds of 
some of the most learned in this literature, that the significant appellation 
crystalized into this form from the frequent utterances of a current sentiment 
among the Indians at Wataga. 

The Boonesborough convention never reassembled, and the rights and 
powers claimed by the proprietors of Transylvania were more and more 
feebly asserted. Dissensions among themselves sprang up, and the ambitious 
dream of an independent and sovereign government west of the Alleghanies, 
to be molded and destined amid the confusion and doubt of jurisdictions for- 
the future, was not now to be realized. 

I Virginia Calendar, Vol. I., p. 283. 



TRANSYLVANIA PURCHASE DECLARED NULL AND VOID. 53 

The proprietors met at their old home, in Oxford, North CaroHna, on the 
25th of September, and appointed James Hogg to represent the colony of 
Transylvania in the Continental Congress, then sitting at Philadelphia, and 
to request "that Transylvania be added to the number of the united colo- 
nies, and that Mr. Hogg be admitted to a seat as their delegate." ^ He was 
refused the honor of such admission. Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson 
failed to encourage their advances toward gaining the acquiescence of Vir- 
ginia; and Governor Martin, of North Carolina, early in this same year of 
1775, issued his proclamation declaring illegal the Wataga purchase from the 
Cherokees, so far as it embraced lands now in Tennessee; and Governor 
Dunmore did the same for the territorial jurisdiction of Virginia. Soon 
after, the transaction was made null and void by statute. 

As a measure of equity, on November 4, 1778, the Virginia House of 
Delegates formally 

' ' Resolved, That the purchases heretofore made by Richard Henderson & 
■Company, of that tract of land called Transylvania, is void. But as the 
said Henderson & Company have been at very great expense in making 
the said purchase and in settling the said lands, it is just and reasonable to 
allow the same a compensation." 

Soon after, it was 

'■^Enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That all that tract of land 
situate and being on the waters of the Ohio and Green rivers, to-wit: Begin- 
ning at the mouth of Green river, thence up the same twelve and a half 
miles, when reduced to a straight line, thence running at right angles with 
the said reduced lines twelve and a half miles on each side the said river, 
thence running lines from the termination of the line extended on either 
side the said Green river, at right angles with the same, until the said lines 
intersect the Ohio, which said Ohio shall be the western boundary of the 
said tract, be, and the same is, hereby granted the said Richard Henderson & 
Company — two hundred thousand acres at the mouth of Green river, and on 
both sides of same." 2 

In the like spirit of justice, the Assembly of North Carolina granted to 
the company two hundred thousand acres more, lying within its jurisdiction. 
Thus ended, in compromise and concession, the first bold attempt to separate 
Kentucky from her natural alliance with Virginia. Whether England or 
Spain secretly connived at this movement at a time most opportune, we may 
conjecture, but will never know. If it was the first, it was certainly not the 
last, interference by retainer and intrigue upon the same theater. Had 
the proprietors been less extortionate and more conciliatory, the future of 
Kentucky might have been different. 

I Collins, Vol. II., n. 511. 

a Littell's Laws of Kentucky, and Virginia Appendix, Vol. III., p 5. 



54 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Harrod, McAfee, and others lead in one 
hundred men. 

Many return home from fear of the In- 
dians. 

First crops raised. 

Harrodstown fortified. 

Life and services of Captain James Har- 
rod. 

His untimely death. 

Other gallant spirits at Harrodstown. 

St. Asaphs settled by Colonel Benjamin 
Logan. 

Person and qualities of Logan. 

Rejects the rights of primogeniture, and 
divides his property with his brothers and 
sisters. 

His military spirit. 

Comes to Kentucky. 

Other daring adventurers enter upon this 
theater of action. 

Simon Kenton leaves Fort Pitt to join 
Lewis' army as a scout and spy. 

After the battle of Point Pleasant, he 
resumes a hunter's life in Kentucky. 

Finds the "Caneland" at last. 

Builds a camp at Washington, Mason 
county, clears and plants an acre in corn, 
and eats the first roasting-ears. 



The Blue Licks a great rendezvous of 
game. 

Meets there two wandering white men. 

Hendricks captured in camp and burned 
at the stake. 

Accompany Michael Stoner to Hink- 
son's station. 

Other settlements and surveys in Mason 
county. 

Settlement of McClelland and others at 
Royal Spring, Georgetown, becomes Mc- 
Clelland's station. 

Other settlements at Hinkson's, Bour- 
bon county, and Drennon's Lick, Henry 
county. 

Three hundred explorers in Kentucky 
this year. 

Over two hundred acres of corn planted,, 
besides gardens and orchards. 

Stories of the New Canaan. 

The First women in Kentucky come tc^ 
Boonesborough and Harrodstown. 

Origin of the name of Lexington. 

Hinkson and Haggin make settlements 
on Licking. 

Miller's follow these. 

Douglas', Gist's, and other survey par- 
ties. 



Three weeks in advance of Boone's arrival at the mouth of Otter creek, 
on the Kentucky river, early in April, nearly one hundred men, in separate 
parties, had arrived at Harrodstown and vicinity, the vanguard of immigra- 
tion for 1775. Captain James Harrod and his comrades, after the campaign, 
and great batde of the Kanawha, not only held firmly to their purpose of 
settling in Kentucky, but were re-enforced by others who volunteered to 
share the dangers of the wilderness with them. Harrod and Hite led about 
fifty men on their return, and this party reached the site of their cabin 
improvements, near Salt river, on the 15th of March, and finding them 
yet standing, at once reoccupied them. On the nth of March, four days- 
before, the McAfee company had preceded them, and located at their old sur- 
vey, a short distance below, on Salt river, and at what was afterward known 



INDIAN ATROCITIES CAUSE MUCH FEAR. 55 

as McAfee's station, a few hundred yards above old Providence Church, in 
Mercer county. The latter remained only long enough to clear up and 
plant in peach-stones and apple-seeds two acres of ground. On the nth of 
April, they started with the purpose of returning to Virginia for a time, and 
left two of their men, Higgins and Poulson, with Harrod, to care for their 
property and to prevent any intrusion upon the same. They followed in 
the wake of quite a number of Harrod's men and others, who were leaving 
Kentucky with even more alacrity than had hastened them in. From Col- 
onel Henderson's journal, we read of date, ^'■Saturday, April 8th. — About 
four miles north of Cumberland Gap, we met about forty persons returning 
from the Cantuckey on account of the late murders by the Indians." And 
again, '■'■April i6th. — Met James McAfee, with eighteen others, returning 
from Cantuckey." 

After the attacks by the Indians on Boone's party, near the site of Rich- 
mond, March 25th and 28th, Captain Boone dispatched a messenger to 
Colonel Henderson with the following letter: 

"April the ist, 1775. 

'■'■Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you of 
our misfortunes. On the 25th, a party of Indians fired on my company 
about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twetty and his negro, and 
wounded Mr. Walker very deeply, but I hope he will recover. On the 
28th, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel Tate's son, who 
gave us an account that the Indians fired on their camp on the 27th. My 
brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped, Thomas 
McDowell and Jeremiah McPheeters. I have sent a man down to all the 
lower companies, in order to gather them all to the mouth of Otter creek. 

"I am, sir, your most obedient, Daniel Boone." 

The ' ' lower companies " were those at Harrodstown and vicinity. Instead 
of rendezvousing at Otter creek with Boone, a large number made a hasty 
retreat toward the old colonies, alarmed at such demonstrations of hostilities 
least expected. The disastrous defeat of the Indians at the Kanawha but a 
few months before, the treaty of peace negotiated at Chillicothe, and the 
proclamation of assurance by Governor Dunmore, quieted all fears of danger 
from that quarter, and had largely to do Avith inducing so early and numer- 
ous an emigration at the first dawn of spring to Kentucky. 

There were doubtless numbers among these who were of roving and rest- 
less spirit, with little purpose for the future, and whose only compensation 
was the pleasure and novelty of adventure, without much aim for permanent 
stay or established interest in the country. Such persons cared to risk little of 
such dangers for the compensation, and hence were quick to leave on the first 
appearance of savage hostilities. Of those whom Colonel Henderson met, 
Robert and Samuel McAfee, and a number with them, readily turned back 
on his invitation, and accompanied him to Boonesborough. Harrodstown 
was still occupied by Holmes, Benson, Lynch, Cartwright, Linn, and others 



56 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

after this exodus of so many comrades. Captain James Harrod, Isaac Hite, 
and others had settled at and in the vicinity of Boihng Spring, six miles 
south-east of Harrodstown, now on the turnpike to Danville. 

In a letter dated June 12th, at Boonesborough, Colonel Henderson writes: 
"To the west, about fifty miles from us, are two settlements within six miles 
of each other, Harrodstown and Boiling Spring. There were, some time ago, 
about one hundred men at the two places, though now, perhaps, not more 
than sixty or seventy, as many of them are gone up the Ohio for their fami- 
lies, and some returned by the way we came, to A^irginia and elsewhere." It 
is of record, that at least fourteen of the settlers of this vicinity planted 
and raised corn within a (ew miles of Harrodstown this season, and two 
near Lexington. On May 8th, Henderson's journal mentions that Colonel 
Slaughter of Harrodstown, and Captain Harrod of Boiling Spring, who that 
day arrived at Boonesborough to confer concerning the titles to lands, had 
with him "much dispute about the respective claims of the two for lands to 
be apportioned to their respective companies." 

The exact date and circumstances of the building of the fort at Har- 
rodstown are matteis not of record so well preserved as at Boonesborough. 
Collins says: "The north line of the fort is supposed to have been about two 
hundred and fifty feet south of the old spring, on the brow of the hill where 
it rises to a comparative level. The number of cabins in it, or its dimen- 
sions, is nowhere preserved. The old graveyard, which stands five hundred 
feet nearly south-east from the former, is full of head-pieces of rough lime- 
stone, without any letters even to indicate the names of the pioneers sleeping 
beneath." 

The representative man and the moving spirit whose indomitable will, 
prudential instinct, and unfaltering courage gave life and leadership to the 
community of settlers at Harrodstown and vicinity, was Captain James Har- 
rod, a noble type of that manhood which distinguished the pioneer deeds 
and incidents of our earliest history. But a year before, gathering around 
him a band of thirty men, he penetrated to its central depths the great 
wilderness, and made the first "cabin improvements" ever built in Ken- 
tucky, at the site of his own choosing. 

1 Late in summer, he was summoned by Governor Dunmore's messengers 
to hasten back to Virginia, in view of the invasion of that colony by the 
confederated Indian army. Summoning his little band, he marched them 
four hundred miles through the unbroken forests and across the mountains, 
joined in General Lewis' campaign at the mouth of Kanawha, and there 
participated in the battle fought and victory won. Tarrying only through 
the severest winter months, Captain Harrod, with his company re-enforced to 
fifty men, started back to Kentucky, repeating the long and perilous march 
through the wilderness for the third time in twelve months. From sketches 
of him by Marshall, we learn that James Harrod was a man six feet in height, 

I Marshall, pp. 23-25 ; Morehead's Address. 



DEATH AND EULOGY OF CAPTAIN JAMES HARROD. 57 

well proportioned, and finely constructed for activity and strength. His com- 
plexion was dark, his hair and eyes black, his countenance animated, and 
his deportment grave. His speech was mild and his manners conciliating, 
rather by the confidence they inspired than any grace or elegance they 
displayed. Yet was he but imperfectly educated, even in the elements of 
the English language. Indeed, it was not letters he learned, or books he 
studied; and without the culture of these, he knew how to be kind and 
obliging to his fellowmen, and active and brave in their defense. To 
breathe the fresh air of the forest, to range the country on hunting and 
trapping excursions, and to provide his comrades with the spoils of the 
camp, were far more congenial to his tastes. He was actively engaged in 
the defense of the country, on scouts on the frontier, and with several expe- 
ditions into the Indian country. On such occasions, the dexterity of the 
woodsman and the bravery of the soldier were as conspicuous as useful. He 
seemed to be free from ambition, though by instinct a leader. Simple in 
manner and frugal in diet, independent in sentiment and open in council, 
■destitute of art and without public authority. Captain Harrod nevertheless 
had a party; not so much that he wanted one, but because the party wanted 
liim. Wherever the social principle exists, when in the midst of danger men 
instinctively seek a leader to concentrate their force and direct their enter- 
prise, especially of protection and defense. Such a leader is usually the 
favorite in companionship, and a man in whose courage, skill, and devotion 
they have the most implicit faith. He lived in the affections and confidence 
of all around him, and died lamented by surviving friends. 

After the country became more populous, Harrod would leave home and 
domestic comforts and repair to distant unsettled parts and remain for weeks 
at a time, to gratify the hunter's longing for the forest and the camp. On 
one of these expeditions he lost his life, some eighteen years after the date 
of his final settlement, and as his wife testified, by treachery and assassi- 
nation, by one Bridges, who became offended at him about a lawsuit over 
property, and under pretense of conciliation, lured him to the forests. After 
murdering him. Bridges fled the country, i The rank of colonel was con- 
ferred on Harrod, as a testimonial of his qualities as a soldier and officer. 

Besides that of Harrod, the names of impetuous McGary, of ever vigilant 
and daring Ray, of brave, expert, and devoted Chapline, McBride, Har- 
lan, and others, will not be forgotten, though their deeds of valor were 
better known than their names in history. 

The third important settlement during the spring of 1775 was made at 
St. Asaphs, more popularly known after as Logan's Fort. This was located 
near one of those large, flowing springs Avhich were often found in the lime- 
stone region of Kentucky, and here forming the head of St. Asaphs run. 
The site is about one mile west of the present town of Stanford, in the midst 
of a fine cane and bluegrass country. The settlement here owed its existence 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 614. 



-^8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and permanent success to the courage and enterprise of Colonel Benjamin 
Logan, one among the earliest and most distinguished of those bold pio- 
neers, says Collins, who, penetrating the western wilds, laid the foundation 
of arts, civilization, and religion in the solitudes of the boundless forests. 
It is among the proudest of those distinctions which have exalted the char- 
acter of our venerated Commonwealth, that it numbers among its founders 
men beneath whose rough and homespun hunting-shirts, there dwelt qualities 
of heroism which would have made them immortal to the historian or poet 
in Greece or Rome. As the eye wanders along the serried ranks of those 
stern and iron men, who stood firm and fearless under the gloom of the 
overshadowing forest, it will rest awhile on a commanding form that towers- 
conspicuously above them all, tall, manly, and dignified; a face cast in the 
finest mold of manly beauty, dark, grave, and contemplative, and which, 
while it evinces unyielding fortitude and impenetrable reserve, invites to a 
confidence that never betrays. Such a man was Benjamin Logan. ^ He was 
born in Augusta county, Virginia, of Irish parents. At fourteen years of 
age, he lost his father, and found himself prematurely at the head of a large 
family. His surroundings had not been favorable to his education, and the 
widowhood of the mother is not presumed to have added to his opportunities. 
To his limited knowledge of books, however, he studied in the school of 
rough experience, and became an adept in the knowledge of men and things. 

His father died intestate, and by the laws then in force, the lands were 
his by primogeniture, to the exclusion of his younger brothers and sisters. 
He scorned to avail himself of this legalized robbery, and with his mother's- 
consent sold the land not susceptible of partition, and divided the proceeds 
to those whom a vicious law had disinherited. To provide for his mother a 
comfortable residence, he united his funds to those of one of his brother's, 
and with this purchased another tract of land on a fork of James river, and 
secured the title to her for life, if so long she chose to remain on it, with the 
remainder to his brother in fee. Having done this, he next determined to 
provide a home for himself. With tearful farewell, and a mother's "God 
bless you," Logan turned his steps to the cheap lands of the West, and with 
his little remnant of money purchased a home on Holston river, married, 
and settled down to farming. 

At an early age, he had shown a predilection for military life, and at 
twenty-one had accompanied Colonel Bosquet in his expedition against the 
Indians of the north, as a sergeant. In 1774, he was with Dunmore, in 
the campaign against the Miami confederation. In 1775, he resolved to 
come to Kentucky, and with but two or three slaves set out to see the land 
and lay the foundations for a settlement. In Powell's valley, he met with 
Boone, Henderson, and others, on their way to Kentucky. With them he 
traveled through the wilderness, but not approving of their plan of settle- 
ment, he separated from them on their arrival in Kentucky, and turning 

I Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 29-30; Collins, Vol. II., p. 469. 



KENTON ENTRANCED BY THE CANELAND. 59 

westwardly, after a few days' journey, pitched his camp in the present county 
of Lincoln, where he afterward built his fort. Here, during the same year, 
he and William Galaspy, with several servants, raised a small crop of Indian 
corn. In the latter end of June, he returned to his family, on the Holston. 

In the fall of the same year, he removed his cattle and the residue of his 
slaves to the camp, and leaving all in the care of Galaspy, returned home 
with a view of moving out his family, which was done the next year. These 
journeys and the exposure in camp to continued peril and privation show 
the hardihood and energy of his mind, as well as his physical endurance and 
vigor. Though on his first entrance into Kentucky he met the returning 
explorers, and heard the stories of Indian massacres and perils, his dauntless 
spirit led him forward with his little band of comrades, with that determina- 
tion of will that characterized him throughout his eventful life. Whether 
Logan took active part for or against the plans of Henderson & Company 
or not, does not clearly appear. In the Boonesborough Convention the names 
of Todd, Dandridge, Floyd, and Wood appear as delegates from St. Asaphs, 
but no mention is made of Logan in this connection. Bold as he ever was 
in the hour of necessity and duty, severe experience had taught him the 
value of discretionary reserve. 

Other bold adventurers appeared at remoter points in Kentucky during 
this same year of 1775. Simon Kenton, after spending the winter of 1773-4 
in his favorite role of border life — a hunting camp on the Big Sandy — sought 
refuge in Fort Pitt on the breaking out of the Miami Indian war. ^ Volun- 
teering in person, he performed active and invaluable services as a spy, 
shifting his movements between the armies of Lord Dunmore and General 
Lewis, and adroitly moving along the picket lines of the advancing Indian 
army, for information as a spy. After an honorable discharge from service, 
he returned to his former camp and hunting-ground, on the Big Sandy, in 
the autumn of 1774, with Thomas Williams. The old yearning for the 
"caneland" came over them. Disposing of their furs, they embarked down 
the Ohio, and one night put in their canoe at the mouth of Cabin creek. 
Mason county, about six miles above the site of May§ville. Next day, while 
hunting out from the river, the sight of the longed-for cane-brakes burst on 
the enraptured vision of Kenton, who had come to be incredulous of the 
stories of his old comrade, Yeager, of what he had seen in the mystic inte- 
rior of Kentucky. Here was land richer than he had ever seen before, 
perennial herbage, and limpid springs. He was entranced, and bearing the 
cheering news to Williams, they determined to tarry near. Sinking their 
canoe, they entered the forest, and in May, 1775, built their camp within a 
mile of the present town of Washington, Mason county. Here they cleared 
up an acre of ground, and planted it with a portion of corn they had received 
from the French trader to whom they sold their furs. Before the harvest 
matured they feasted on the first roasting-ears that ever grew by the hands 

I Marshall, Vol. 1., p. 39; Collins, Vol. II., p. 442. 



6o HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of a white man on the south side of the Ohio river in that vicinity, and on a 
spot of land as fertile and beautiful as sunshine ever gladdened. The upper 
and lower Blue Licks lay less than half a day's journey to the south-west, on 
Licking river, and beaten paths or traces led to these from the grazing 
grounds of cane and bluegrass, along which buffalo, elk, and deer were 
constantly passing to and fro. Following one of these traces, Kenton and 
Williams found the hills and valleys around the licks covered with herds of 
these wild animals, and in this new hunter's paradise reveled in sport and 
feasted on the spoils of the chase. 

They were surprised at meeting one day, at the lower Blue Lick, two 
men, Fitzpatrick and Hendricks, who had wandered thus far interior without 
food, or guns to procure it, their canoe having been upset in a squall on the 
Ohio. Hendricks acceded to Kenton's invitation to join their station, while 
the other insisted on returning to Virginia. Leaving Hendricks at the camp, 
Kenton and Williams conducted Fitzpatrick to the Ohio, equipped him with 
gun and ammunition, and took leave of him on the north side of the Ohio, 
opposite Maysviile site. At once returning, they were surprised and alarmed 
to find the camp unoccupied and in disorder. Not far away they discovered 
smoke ascending in a ravine, and at once divined the situation. Hendricks 
had been captured by Indians, and they fled to the woods. Next morning, 
cautiously approaching the spot where the smoke was seen, they found that 
the savages had departed. Inspecting more closely, they were horrified to 
find the skull and bones of unfortunate Hendricks. The fiends had burned 
him at the stake. Such an act of cruel barbarity seemed incredible to the 
young frontiersmen, and they reproached themselves that they had not made 
an effort at rescue. Believing him a prisoner, they had thought it better to 
leave him to the chances of escape, rather than jeopardize his and their own 
lives by a doubtful attack on the captors. Returning to the camp at Wash- 
ington site, they escaped the notice of the prowling Indians. Toward fall, 
they met with Michael Stoner, who had accompanied Boone to Kentucky 
the year previous, at Blue Lick, who informed them for the first time that 
there were many others in Kentucky this year beside themselves. Stoner 
bearing them company to their camp, they soon after gathered up their prop- 
erty and went with him to the settlements already formed in the interior. 
Kenton passed the next winter at Hinkson's station, in the present county of 
Bourbon. 

Other improvers appeared in Mason county this year. In May, Samuel 
and Haydon Wells, with seven others, came from Virginia to survey and 
enter lands. They camped on Limestone creek, and surveyed fifteen thou- 
sand acres between the Ohio and north fork of Licking, from above Mill to 
the mouth of Battle creek — the latter so called from a fight between John 
Rust and Haydon Wells, so prolonged and desperate that Matthew Rust, in 
a deposition after, speaks of it as a "damnation fight." The creek is now 
known as Wells creek. 



JOHN COOPER MASSACRED. 6 1 

In April, Charles Lacompte, Andrew McConnell, John McClelland, and 
comrades, from the Monongahela country, came down the Ohio and passed 
up the Kentucky river to the Elkhorn region. In June, they set out to 
return, and crossing the country to Mason county, remained through the 
summer in the vicinity of Washington. During the few weeks they were 
on Elkhorn, they made some improvements in what is now Scott county, 
building a cabin at the Royal Spring, which lies at the present western 
limit of Georgetown. In November, John McClelland, William McConnell, 
and five others of this party, joined by Simon Kenton and Colonel Robert 
Patterson, of Pennsylvania, returned to the Elkhorn improvements, and 
extended and strengthened the buildings at Royal Spring. McClelland's 
house of that date was the next summer, by the same party and in the same 
spot, converted into McClelland's station, the first fort known to have been 
built in Kentucky north of Kentucky river. In its construction, several 
others from John Hinkson's cabin on South Licking, and from a cabin 
improvement at Drennon Lick in Henry county, co-operated. This year 
John Cooper raised a small crop of corn on Hinkson in Bourbon county; 
and at his hospitable cabin, Simon Kenton and others passed the winter of 
1775-6; where in July following, being left alone, the host was massacred 
by the savages.^ 

2 Butler, upon the authority of some of the pioneers yet living as late as 
1833, computes the number of explorers and settlers who were in Kentucky 
by May, 1775, at three hundred; and that these planted and raised not less 
than two hundred and thirty acres of corn. During this year also the seeds 
of fruits were planted by some of the most thoughtful, and the foundations 
laid for orchards, which bore abundantly, a few years after, harvests of rich 
fruit to reward the grateful palates of the backwoodsmen. 

The main settlements at Boonesborough and Harrodstown were destined 
to an acquisition in the autumn of this year, which would bring sunshine 
and joy to the social circle, and an air of contentment and home comfort to 
the restless and adventurous men of the wilderness. Daniel Boone was in 
buoyant hope and spirit over the successful venture of this year, and saw in 
it the realization of the day-dream which had haunted his imagination for 
years. About the ist of September, he took a party of men and returned 
to his old settlement on Clinch river, determined to set an example to others 
by removing his family to the new land of his adoption. The praises of 
this land were ever on his lips ; and the spies who returned to the children 
of Israel from prospecting the land of Canaan told no more marvelous sto- 
ries of wonders seen, than Boone and his comrades related to their curious 
and willing neighbors of the colonies. His little band was re-enforced, not 
by men only, but wives and mothers and maidens, in turn, showed a willing- 
ness to follow westward the fortunes of husbands and sons and brothers, 
and the example of Boone's household. About the ist of September he 

1 Collins, Vol. II., p. 549-11. 2 Butler, p. 31. 



62 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

set out again for Kentucky with his wife and children and a few followers. 
In Powell's valley, he found Hugh McGary, Richard Hogan, and Thomas 
Denton, with their families and followers, awaiting his arrival. Thus in- 
creased to twenty-six men, four women, and four or five children — half- 
grown, perhaps — he placed himself at the head of the little colony, and 
gallantly led it through Cumberland Gap and into the mysteries of the great 
wilderness beyond, where it was destined to be of the germ of a sovereign 
commonwealth and the plant of a new civilization. ^ 

When the party reached the headwaters of Dick's river, in Rockcas- 
tle county, McGary, Denton, and Hogan, following their preference for 
a location, with their families and a few comrades separated from the others, 
and leaving "Boone's Trace," made their way through the forest toward 
Harrodstown, where they arrived on the 8th of September. On the same 
day Boone, with his party, reached Boonesborough. Of this achievement, 
the old backwoodsman proudly says in his narrative: " My wife was the first 
white woman who ever stood on the banks of the Kentucky river." It may 
as truly be said that Mrs. McGary, Mrs. Hogan, and Mrs. Denton became 
the centers of the first family circles that were ever formed at Harrodstown, 
and were the first white women upon the waters of Salt river. These ad- 
vance pioneer women were followed soon by others. The families of Colonel 
Richard Callaway, William Poague, and John B. Stagner reached Boones- 
borough on the 26th of September. 2 William Poague removed his family 
to Harrodstown in February following ; and Stagner must have done like- 
wise soon after, as in June, 1777, we learn that he was killed and beheaded 
by Indians half a mile only from that fort. "Boone's Trace" now afforded 
a comparatively good road for pack-horses in single file from the settlements 
on Holston to Boonesborough, and upon this path through the wilderness 
there was frequent travel to and fro by the autumn of 1775. 

The romantic origin of the name borne by the city of Lexington is given 
in the eloquent address of Governor James T. Morehead, in 1845, ^t the 
celebration of the first settlement of Kentucky at Boonesborough, in the 
following language: "In the year 1775, intelligence was received by a party 
of hunters, while accidentally encamped on one of the branches of Elkhorn, 
that the first battle of the Revolution had been fought in the vicinity of 
Boston between the British and provincial forces ; and that in commemora- 
tion of the event they called the spot of their encampment Lexington. No 
settlement was then made. The spot is now covered by one of the most 
beautiful cities on the continent." 

In confirmation of the truth of this incident, in April, 1775, Joseph 
Lindsey, Garrett Jordan^ John Vance, and others started from Drennon's 
Lick, in Henry county, and came up the Kentucky river to Elkhorn, where 
John Lee and Hugh Shannon joined them. Following Elkhorn to the forks, 
thence by way of the Royal Spring, they came to the spot where Lexington 

I Hartley's Daniel Boone, pp. 105-6. 2 Collins, Vol., II., pp. 520 and 616. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT AT LEXINGTON. 63 

BOW Stands. Remaining here in camp for a day or two on account of rainy- 
weather, Patrick Jordan discovered a large spring down the fork on which 
they camped. When he returned and told of his discovery, Joseph Lindsey 
promptly paid two guineas to Jordan to go with him and show the spring, 
and allow him to locate there. There the Jordans aided Lindsey to make 
a cabin improvement, and to clear away and plant half an acre of ground 
in corn. In September, Lindsey had a supply of garden vegetables and 
roasting-ears, the first eaten in that section. ^ 

The battle of Lexington was fought on the 19 th of April. There were 
■some forty settlers on Hinkson and Licking, within twenty or thirty miles, 
and these and others doubtless visited the party in the Lexington locality. 
The tradition was often repeated and accepted without question, in after 
lime, that when the news of the battle was brought, the foresters in camp upon 
the spot, in honor of the event, gave to the place the name Lexington, and 
by this it was always known after. 

The Hinkson and Licking settlements alluded to above were important. 
In March or April, 1775, a party of fifteen men, under the lead of John 
Hinkson and John Haggin, came down the Ohio and up Licking river in 
canoes, and landed at the present site of Falmouth, remaining there some 
■days on account of rains and high water. The hackberry tree, out of the 
side of which Samuel Williams cut a Johnny-cake board, near the mouth of 
Willow creek, was standing in 1803 with the scar of the deep wounds. Pro- 
ceeding up Licking to the buffaloes' trace below Lower Blue Lick, they dis- 
embarked and followed the trace north-westward to a point between Paris 
and Cynthiana, and there made clearings and a settlement for each man of 
the party. These were the foundations for Hinkson's and Martin's stations, 
about one mile above Lair's depot, on the Kentucky Central Railroad, and 
here the foresters raised corn and vegetables, which not only supplied their 
rude tables, but gave seed for succeeding crops there and to neighbors. ^ 

But a few days behind these, another party of fourteen, led by William 
and John Miller, came the same canoe route and fell in with Hinkson's 
band near Lower Blue Lick. Following the same old main trace, the same 
that led by the site of Lexington, they separated at a branch trace in Bour- 
bon county, and turning westward, camped on Miller's run, near the cross- 
ing of Ruddle's road, as afterward known. In this vicinity they made 
fourteen improvements, one for each of the party. These two neighboring 
settlements became a common point of rendezvous and dispersion for pass- 
ing bands of explorers, scouts,- and hunters, of little less importance than the 
stations on the south side of Kentucky river. 

A letter of Colonel Henderson to his associates in North Carolina, of 
date June 12, 1775, sums up the geographic situation in terse and general 
terms, and we quote as follows: 

"We are seated at the mouth of Otter creek (Boonesborough), on the 

I Collins, Vol. IL, p. 177, 2 Collins, Vol. IL, p. 325. 



64 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Kentucky river, about one hundred and fifty miles from the Ohio. To the 
west, about fifty miles from us, are two settlements some six or seven miles 
apart (Harrodstown and Boiling Spring). There were, some time ago, about 
one hundred at the two places, though now not more than sixty or seventy, 
as many have gone up the Ohio, and others, by the way we came, to Vir- 
ginia and elsewhere. These men, in the course of hunting provisions, lands, 
etc. , are some of them constantly out, and scour the woods from the banks of 
the river fifty miles southward. On the opposite side of the river, and north, 
from us about forty miles, is a settlement on the crown lands of about nine- 
teen persons (Hinkson's); and lower down toward the Ohio, on the same 
side, there are some other settlers (Miller's) — how many, or at what place, I 
can't exactly learn. There is also a party of ten or twelve with a surveyor, 
who are employed in searching through that country and laying off officers^ 
lands. They have been for more than three 'weeks within ten miles of us, 
and will be for several weeks longer, ranging up and down that country." 

The latter survey party were probably the Douglas and Gist party, who, 
with James Harrod and others, under the guidance of David Williams, 
explored and located many lands from Stoner southward toward the Ken- 
tucky river, as did Douglas, Floyd, and Hancock Taylor, on the same and 
a wider field the year previous. 



SKEICH OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



65 



CHAPTER X. 



Opening of the Revolutionary war. 

Declaration of Independence. 

Menace of Kentucky from British posts 
in the North-west. 

General George Rogers Clark. 

His life and services to Kentucky and 
the Union. 

The "Hannibal of the West." 

From the Dunmore war, he comes to 
Kentucky with a major's commission. 

Declines to enter the English army. 

Counterplots the plans of Transylvania 
Company. 

Chosen a commissioner to Virginia. 

Returns there through great privations. 

Asks supply of ammunition for Ken- 
tucky. 

Virginia's doubtful jurisdiction. 

Clark declines to assume the responsi- 
bility for her. 

His alternative. 

Virginia finally consents. 

Clark and Jones induce the Burgesses 
to create Kentucky county out of part of 
Fincastle county. 

Indian spies watch the convoy of powder 
to Kentucky. 



It is landed on the banks of Limestone 
in Mason county, and hid there. 

Captain Todd attempts to convey it in. 

Is attacked and defeated by Indians. 

Clark, with a troop, brings in the pow- 
der. 

Boonesborough startled by the capture 
of Boone's and Callaway's daughters. 

The pursuit. 

The rescue and return of the maidens to 
their parents. 

Tactics in trailing Indians. 

Leestown, at Frankfort, established. 

Hinkson's and other stations abandoned. 

Sandusky station, Washington county. 

Whitley station founded near Crab Or- 
chard. 

Colonel Patterson starts to Pittsburgh 
for ammunition. 

Party attacked at Kanawha. 

Patterson desperately wounded. 

Indian methods in sieges and attacks. 

McClelland's, at Georgetown, attacked. 

Repulsed. 

The place soon after abandoned. 

First divine services. 

Characteristics of the people. 



In the spring of 1775 there appeared at Harrodstown, with some mystery- 
attending his coming, a man who was destined to act a conspicuous part in 
the early history of Kentucky, and whose genius and enterprising abihty 
did more than that of any other man to secure to the united colonies the 
conquest and settlement of the entire North-west, to the Lakes on the north 
and to the Mississippi on the west. George Rogers Clark was born in Albe- 
marle county, Virginia, November 19, 1752. Little is known of his earlier 
years, excepting that he was engaged in the business of land surveying. 
From an interesting pen-picture of his early life by Mr. Bodley, we quote : 

"If you will let your imagination roam with mine for a moment, we will 
go — we are there — on that beautiful slope of rolling country east of the 
Blue Ridge, in Albemarle county, in Virginia, in 1773, on an early April 
morning, chill and crisp and clear. And as we move along the farm-bor- 

5 



66 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

dered country road, here before us is the entrance of an old-time, broad- 
porticoed Virginia farm-house; and there seems to be some excitement here- 
about, for over there, hanging just back of the porch-corner, is a gathering 
of evidently curious negro slaves of all sorts and of all ages — an old, trem- 
bling, gray-haired man, leaning on his long, hickory stick, ebony women 
in blue check aprons and yellow bandanas, and children of every size in 
cotton gowns that look like meal-bags with arm-holes cut in and the ends 
cut off. And here in front, standing hat in hand, is a well-dressed young 
negro man holding a saddled horse. That tells the story; somebody is 
going away. Presently the door opens, and a young man, a mere light- 
haired boy, but very tall and noble to look upon, turns and bends to kiss 
his mother, then his sister, then again his mother. 'Good-bye, brother; 
be sure and send the powder. Good-bye.' And presently up yonder where 
the road is entering the forest, he turns in his saddle and waves a farewell 
to the gathered ones at home. 

"That was George Rogers Clark, the founder of this Commonwealth, 
then leaving his home a young soldier-engineer of twenty-one to seek 
adventure and cast his fortune with the people in the wilds of Kentucky. 

"In that day, the young men of Virginia rarely engaged in mercantile 
pursuits, and those who did not choose to enter one of the learned profes- 
sions, and for whose restless energies farming was too prosaic a Hfe, found 
at once a reputable, active, and congenial occupation in land surveying. It 
is a singular fact that from Washington down a large proportion of the emi- 
nent men of action in the Southern colonies were, in their younger days, 
engaged in this pursuit. And so it was that young Clark and the two of his 
five brothers who afterward won distinction, the one as the first major- 
general of the State of Virginia, and the other as a general and the first 
governor of Missouri, were in their earlier manhood surveying engineers." 

Clark commanded a company in the Dunmore war, and bore an active 
part against the Indians, though he was then but twenty-two years old. At 
the close of hostilities, he was offered a commission in the English service, 
but was induced, by the threatened rupture between Great Britain and the 
colonies, to decline the appointment. 

Of Clark, Marshall says: "His appearance, well calculated to attract 
attention, was rendered particularly agreeable by the manliness of his de- 
portment, by the intelligence of his conversation, the vivacity and boldness 
of his spirit for enterprise, and the determined interest he manifested to 
make of this country his home. He fixed on no particular residence, and 
was much in the woods ; incidentally visiting the forts and ostensible camps, 
cultivating the acquaintance of the people, and acquiring an extensive 
knowledge of the objects presented to his curiosity and for his inspec- 
tion." 

In stature, some six feet three inches in height, of well proportioned body 
and shapely limbs, Clark was of that imposing presence and dignity that 



CLARK BREVETTED MAJOR. 67 

commanded the tribute of deference from all who approached him, and yet 
so gentle and affable to all that the magnetism of his person won the confi- 
dence and secured the friendship of those around him. The description of 
person and bearing reminds one of the great Washington, and the unselfish 
nobihty of his character, his civic and military genius, and his devoted patri- 
otism, made him, in the obscure field of the mighty West, a hero only less 
than Washington by the limited theater of his opportunities. 

Clark made his first adventure westward in company with Rev. David 
Jones, in 1772-3. Coming as far down as the mouth of the Scioto, he 
returned to the Kanawha valley. In the spring of 1774, he was preparing 
for a more extended exploration of Kentucky, with a party of daring follow- 
ers, when his purpose and plans were diverted by the impending Indian war 
for the time. AVhether he came to Kentucky with an official commission or 
not is of doubt; but such seemed to be his superior military bearing and 
prestige, he was, by common consent, placed at the head of the irregular 
troops then in Kentucky, and saluted with the title of major. Though a 
man of no ostentatious pretensions to scholarly attainments, he is said to 
have been of meditative and observing mind, and much devoted to the 
study of some branches of mathematics and to the history and geography of 
the country. 

The question of jurisdiction between Henderson & Company and Virginia 
agitated the settlers everywhere in Kentucky, for it affected every land title in 
the country. Major Clark could not have remained a disinterested observer 
of this most vital issue. He was indeed the only man then in Kentucky 
who was the peer of Colonel Henderson in far-reaching sagacity, in political 
diplomacy, in masterly leadership, and in resolute will of execution. From 
present and subsequent measures for marplotting and foiling the plans of the 
proprietors of Transylvania, we may reasonably infer that Major Clark very 
promptly conceived a determination to overthrow this bold jurisdiction, based 
alone on the proprietary assumptions of nine individuals, citizens of North 
Carolina. 

The reserve, with which he concealed his personal animus and aim behind 
the ostensible authority under which he acted as the representative of the 
dissatisfied settlers in the Harrodstown community, detracts nothing from 
the finesse of the strategist shown in the execution of his plans. 

During the year, he familiarized himself with the settlers, thoroughly 
studied the geographic, civil, and military relations of the country, and 
interested himself with patriotic devotion in the future welfare of the infant 
colony. 1 He seemed thus early to be impressed with the importance of this 
country to the security of Virginia and her sister colonies, not only from its 
local consequence, but as the pivotal key to the great West and North-west. 

Having returned to Virginia in the autumn previous, Clark came back to 
Kentucky in the spring of 1776. After quietly conferring with some of the 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 133. 



68 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

leading settlers, at his suggestion, a meeting for counsel and decisive action 
was called at Harrodstown on the 6th of June, at which Gabriel Jones and 
himself were chosen members' of the Assembly of Virginia. This did not 
accord with the plans of Clark, as he advised that the meeting should choose 
agents to negotiate with the Government of Virginia, and if abandoned by 
the latter, to employ the lands of the country as a resource to obtain money 
and emigration, and thus to lay the foundation for an independent State. 
The purpose seems to have been, in either event, to marplot and defeat the 
schemes of the Transylvania Company. 

Clark and Jones were aware that they would be entitled to no seat in the 
Virginia Assembly on such credentials as they could offer; yet they accepted 
the mission and set out for Williamsburg, the seat of government. Pursu- 
ing the route through the wilderness in a very wet season, through mud and 
over mountains, kindling no fires for fear of savages, their privations and dis- 
tresses brought on illness. "Suffering more torment," says Clark, "than I 
ever experienced before or since, we found the old stations near Cumberland 
Gap abandoned from fear of the Indians." Here, however, they tarried 
and recuperated, but this delay prevented their arrival until after the adjourn- 
ment of the Assembly. ^ Jones went back to Holston, and left Clark to care 
for the Kentucky mission. 

Waiting on Governor Patrick Henry, he unfolded the objects of his pres- 
ence. Approving heartily these objects, the governor gave him a suitable 
letter to the executive council of the State. An application was made to the 
council for five hundred pounds of gunpowder, for defense of the stations 
in Kentucky. On the plea of doubtful jurisdiction, as Kentucky had not 
been recognized by any formal legislative act since the separation from Great 
Britain, they could only lend the powder to friends in distress; not give it to 
fellow-citizens. A condition imposed was that Clark must be answerable for 
the powder in case the Legislature should not recognize the Kentuckians as 
citizens, and in the meantime, he must bear the expenses of its conveyance 
to the settlements. Clark assured them that this was out of his power; 
that the British were intent on engaging the Indians in the war; that the 
remote and exposed settlements might be destroyed for want of defensive 
means, and that once destroyed, the frontiers of Virginia would next be 
assailed by the savages. The council were inexorable, while they expressed 
the deepest sympathy and desire to aid. It was too great a stretch of power 
to go farther. 

The order was issued to deliver the powder to Clark, but the latter re- 
solved to reject the offer on the conditions. He saw thr^t to accept would 
only weaken the future claim of Virginia to the territory, and finally confirm 
that of the Transylvania Company. His alternative was fixed before he left 
the chamber, to repair to Kentucky and exert the resources of the country 
for the formation of an independent State. He formally returned the order 

I Butler, p. 38. 



CONVEYING POWDER TO KENTUCKY. 



69 



to the council, with a letter informing them that he could not individually 
undertake to transport so large a quantity of gunpowder through the vast 
wilderness, infested with armed enemies; that he was mortified that the peo- 
ple of Kentucky must turn for assistance elsewhere than their own State; 
that a country not worth defending was not worth having, and that aid could 
he found elsewhere. The letter had its effect. Clark was sent for, and an 
order was passed on the 23d of August for the conveyance of the gunpowder 
to Pittsburgh, "to be safely kept and delivered to Mr. George Rogers Clark, 
or his order, for the use of the said inhabitants of Ketitucky y Thus the long 
^nd intimate relationship between the parent and the infant Commonwealth 
was well established, and the splendid domain of the North-west secured to 
the former. ^ 

It must be borne in mind that during these negotiations the claim of the 
Transylvania Company was being adroitly pressed for recognition by the Vir- 
ginia Government. Messrs. Henderson and Campbell were the representa- 
tives of this interest. The fall session of the Assembly coming on, Clark 
and Jones laid the Harrodstown petition before that body, in face of the 
opposition of Henderson and Campbell. The result was that they obtained 
a division of Fincastle county, and the erection of the County of Kentucky, 
■embracing the present State limits. 

Thus, by his genius and bold finesse, did Clark earn for himself the honor 
of laying the solid foundation of a sovereign government westward of the 
Appalachian chain. 

Late in September, hearing that the powder yet lay at Pittsburgh, and 
rightly supposing that intelligence of its transmission had failed to reach 
Kentucky, Clark and Jones determined to return that way and secure its 
transportation through. At Fort Pitt, they found many lurking Indians, 
pretending to make treaties and trade, but who really were spies on the 
movements of our countrymen, whose intention to descend the Ohio they 
seemed to suspect. The party, Avith seven boatmen, resolved to prosecute 
their voyage at once, and in so doing were followed by these Indians until 
they reached the mouth of Limestone, in Mason county. Turning up this 
stream, and hiding their precious cargo in the woods along its banks, they 
let their boat adrift and set out for Harrodstown to procure a sufficient 
escort for the powder. On their route, they stopped at Hinkson's cabin, on 
the west fork of Licking. Here they fell in with a party of surveyors, who 
told them that Captain John Todd was in the vicinity with a small body of 
men, but enough to safely convey the powder through. Clark, after waiting 
for some time for Todd's arrival, pressed on to Harrodstown with two com- 
rades, leaving the remainder with Jones. Captain Todd arrived soon after 
the departure of Clark, and being informed of the facts, marched with ten 
men to effect its removal. Near the Blue Licks, they were attacked by a 
band of Indians who were following Clark. Jones and others were killed, 

I Butler, p. 40. 



70 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and some made prisoners. Clark hastened back from Harrodstown, and 
safely brought in the coveted military supplies under the convoy of an armed 
party which he led. From this time on, Clark was, by common concession, 
looked to as the leading and master spirit of the foresters, and was found 
ever foremost in the fierce conflicts and desperate deeds of the wild and 
thrilling events of frontier life. ^ 

During this year, and since the autumn of 1775, the colony of Boones- 
borough spent the time peaceably and pleasantly enough, in hunting, fishing, 
clearing the woods and improving, and cultivating their corn and other crops, 
which had been much increased. Only once were they molested during the 
winter, when one man was killed by lurking Indians in the vicinity. The 
hostiles, but few in number, at once disappeared. 

On July 14th, one of the most thrilling episodes of the dramatic and 
tragic events of this period occurred j an event which exasperated the brave 
and resolute foresters to even more desperate courage, and which painfully 
impressed the few women who had ventured to follow the fortunes of their 
husbands and loved ones to western wilds, with a vivid sense of the dangers 
to which they were daily subjected in their border life. ^ The two daugh- 
ters of Colonel Richard Callaway, Elizabeth and Frances, and Jemima, the 
daughter of Colonel Daniel Boone, the first just grown to young womanhood, 
and the latter two fourteen years of age, ventured out of Boonesborough 
late in the afternoon, for a boat ride on the Kentucky river, and out of the 
immediate reach of the guards on duty. While innocently amusing them- 
selves on the water, and unconsciously drifting in their canoe very near to 
the opposite shore, they were suddenly surprised and captured by a small 
band of lurking Indians who were ambushed in sight of the fort, on mis- 
chievous intent. With the advantage of the river between them and rescue, 
the Indians quickly disappeared, under cover of the forest and undergrowth, 
with their beautiful and helpless maiden captives, near the hour of sundown. 
Brave Elizabeth Callaway, in that spirit of self-defense so common to the 
women, as well as men, lifted her paddle and gashed an Indian's head to 
the bone. It availed nothing to avert their fate. The shrieks of the girls 
attracted attention from the fort, and those within had just time to see the 
savage captors bear away their victims from the sight of the loving ones 
behind. A thrill of horror ran through the breasts of all, only to be at once 
followed by the intensest anger, resolve, and revenge. The fathers, Boone 
and Callaway, were both absent at the time, but soon returned. What lent 
romance and peculiar interest to the scene, the three lovers of the maidens 
were in the fort. Samuel Henderson, the brother of Colonel Henderson, 
and the elder Miss Callaway were betrothed, and the day of marriage set 
not far in the future. Colonel John Holder was the accepted lover of Fannie 
Callaway, and Flanders Callaway of Jemima Boone. The three lovers at 
once placed themselves under Boone, together with Major Smith, Colonel 

I Butler, p. 41. 2 Marshall, p. 43. 



ON THE TRAIL OF THE INDIANS. 7I 

'Floyd, Bartlett Searcy, and Catlett Jones. This party of eight at once 
entered on the pursuit, while another party followed on horseback, i 

In this warfare with the wily savages, experience taught the necessity of 
method and tactical skill to the frontiersmen, the neglect of which rendered 
even the veteran soldiers of the regular armies often easy victims to savage 
arts and strategy. In this connection, we mention one of the practices of 
the Indian lighters of that period, as related by a descendant of a pioneer 
who received it by tradition of the living actors. - In these raids of preda- 
tory bands, when sudden retreat would often follow a sudden raid, it was 
usually a trial of strategic art for the pursuers to find and keep the trail, and 
for the pursued to obscure or efface it, so as to baffle the pursuers. The 
■ foresters were compelled to meet and fight the Indians after their own ways, 
Land were only successful when they learned to outwit the red men in their 
)wn tactics. If the Indians left numerous and unmistakable signs on the 
'^retreat, it was significant that they desired to be followed and were anxious 
Lor expectant for the wage of battle on terms of such advantage as they could 
employ. In such cases, the whites were on the alert for ambuscade or a 
surprise attack. If, however, escape without a fight was the aim, the obscure 
trail left was the monitor to the pursuing party. In these cases, it was often 
necessary that a dim trail should be followed on the double-quick step. The 
I backwoodsman learned to note, with unerring glance, every sign of an 
' Indian trail, many of which an inexpert eye would never see. The peculiar 
mark of the moccasin, the bruised plant or grass, the disturbed rock or 
stick, the bent or broken twig, the thread of hair or dropped feather, the 
fright of game or flight of birds, and countless 'little things, all were scored 
as signs of trusty guidance. Yet signs sometimes failed, and the trail was 
lost. To go back and look it up again would be fatal to the purpose of 
rescue and revenge. To remedy this, the men in pursuit were placed at 
intervals of twenty or thirty steps apart in a front line, and the middle man 
put upon the trail at the start. The order was given to forward at a quick 
step, often on the lope. It was the duty of the expert hunter in the middle 
to watch the trail with a vigilant eye. If the signs disappeared, he cried out in 
tone loud enough to be heard by the men nearest to him, " trail lost! " The 
next men on his right and left repeated, "trail lost I " and so on, until the warn- 
ing cry rapidly reached both ends of the line. No halt was made, but every 
pursuer quickened his glance to find the trail again. It might be discovered 
by the middle man, or the next man on either side, or any other of the 
party. If so, the finder of the lost trace cried out, "trail found I" and the 
cry repeated on the right and left, "trail found!" went from mouth to 
mouth, until it reached both ends of the line, and thus the pace of pursuit 
never flagged. 

So Boone placed his men in line, the middle man at the trail, as soon as 
they could reach the north bank of the river. The forward order was given, 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 576. 2 Charles Worthir.gton, Boyle county. 



72 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and by nightfall the pursuers camped five miles from the point of starting, 
not able to keep the trace under cover of the night. At day dawn, the 
resolute men were off again, and in hot pursuit. It was vital to their plans 
that they should surprise the Indians, and effect a safe deliverance of the 
captives before the remorseless tomahawk and scalping-knife could have time 
to accomplish their usual bloody work upon the unfortunates, and the cap- 
tors escape. Boone's wary discretion, never more resolutely shown, was 
here equal to his dauntless courage in this most delicate emergency. Every 
eye was kept strained to the front, words passed in bated breath, and yet 
no step was allowed to falter. On the fleeing captors went, bearing their 
precious prizes forward to death, or worse; onward the determined pursuers 
followed, to the rescue and to revenge. Not less intense and exciting was 
the romance of incident and adventure in the rape of the Grecian Helen, the 
flight of the Trojans with the peerless beauty, and the pursuit of the aveng- 
ing Greeks to the walls of devoted Troy; only a Homer Avas found to sing 
the marvelous deeds of gods and men for the one, while only the prose of the 
historic narrator tells the unadorned story of the other. 

Northward, the Indian party hastened their flight, following a route near 
by the sites of Winchester, North Middletown, and Carlisle, until on Tues- 
day morning, the third day after the capture, in camp within a few miles of 
Blue Licks, over forty miles from the point of starting, they were engaged 
in preparing an early and hasty breakfast. The pursuers had followed all 
day Monday, taking fresh courage with every sign of the trail. Elizabeth 
Callaway broke off twigs whenever she could do so, until her life was 
threatened by an upraised tomahawk. Then she managed to tear off and 
drop small shreds of her clothing. Having refused to exchange her shoes 
for moccasins, as the other girls had done, she impressed her heels in the 
soft earth, to guide pursuit. The Indians compelled them to walk apart 
through the cane and brush, and to wade up or down the branches of water, 
so as to hide their trail and deceive as to their number. 

By day dawn on Tuesday, the whites were on the trail again, and after a 
few miles of travel, they saw smoke curling above the trees over where the 
savages had kindled the fire to cook their morning meal of buffalo or veni- 
son. Colonel Floyd says, in a letter written a few days after: "Our study 
had been how to get the prisoners without giving the Indians time to murder 
them after being discovered. We saw each other nearly at the same time. 
Four of us fired, and all rushed on them, by which they were prevented 
from carrying anything away except one shot-gun, without ammunition. 
Colonel Boone and myself had pretty fair shots, and they hastily fled. I 
am convinced I shot through the body. The one he shot dropped his gun ; 
mine had none. The place was covered with thick cane, and being so 
much elated recovering the three poor little broken-hearted girls, we were 
prevented from making any further search. We sent the Indians off almost 
naked; some without their moccasins, and none of them with knife or toma- 



THE RETURN TO THE FORT. 73 

lawk. After the girls came to themselves sufificiently to speak, they told us 
[there were five Indians — four Shawanees and one Cherokee; they could 
[speak pretty good English, and said they were going to the Shawanese towns. 
[The war-club we got was like those we have seen of that nation, and several 
[words of their language, which the girls retained, were known to be Shawa- 

lese." 

In the confused excitement, that which might have proven the saddest 
Jof catastrophes was but timely averted. Elizabeth Callaway was a brunette, 
[with black eyes and hair. The exposure had deepened the color of her 
complexion. When the quick onset was made, she was sitting at the root 
of a tree, with a large, red bandana handkerchief tied around her neck and 
shoulders, and the two wearied comrade maidens asleep on either side, with 
their heads in her lap. One of the white party, mistaking her for an Indian 
guarding the girls, rushed on, with the butt of his gun uplifted to dash out 
her brains, when his arm was arrested just in time to save the life of the 
noble girl. The narrowness of the escape chastened the joy of the rescue 
with a tinge of melancholy for the day. But one of the Indians ever re- 
turned to his tribe, as was afterward learned. ^ 

We must leave to the imagination to picture the joys of that rescue, the 
meetings of the lovers after so rude a separation, and the glad rejoicings of 
Tcindred and friends at the fort in the welcome of their return. Less than 
one month after, on the yth day of August, Samuel Henderson led to the 
rustic altar Elizabeth Callaway, and they were made husband and wife — 
Squire Boone, then an ordained minister of the Baptist church, performing 
the first ceremony in Kentucky. In due course of time the other two couples, 
faithful to their first loves and earliest vows, were also married. 2 

The year ])assed without further events of stirring interest at Boonesbor- 
ough, Harrodstown, and Logan's fort, the leading places of settlement and 
rendezvous. During the year, Colonel Logan and others added to the social 
and home attractions of the latter place the presence of their wives and fam- 
ilies, and some did the same at the two other stations. Planting, tilling, and 
harvesting went encouragingly on, while general improvement was mani- 
fest. 

Leestown (named for Lee, who was there killed by the Indians), one mile 
"below Frankfort, was begun with a cabin improvement a year or two before, 
and became a noted stopping and camping place for the explorers. This 
year it was better established, and other cabin improvements were added. 
These were not in the form of a stockade defense, but rather for the tran- 
sient use and convenience of the emigrants and explorers who came in from 
Fort Pitt or the Monongahela country by way of the Ohio and Kentucky 
rivers, and also a resting point between Lexington and Louisville. On 
account of its defenseless and exposed situation, and the more menacing 
attitude of the Indians, the improvements were soon after abandoned. 

1 Collins, Vol. II., pp. 526 and 527. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 521. 



74 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Thomas Kennedy built a cabin and made some improvements on Ken- 
nedy's creek, in Bourbon county, as did Michael Stoner on Stoner's fork of 
Licking. The settlement on Hinkson's fork, in Bourbon county, was aban- 
doned in July, not being fortified, on account of Indian depredations and 
murders. John Hinkson and eighteen others reached Boonesborough, July 
2oth, on their way back to Virginia, and so disaffected the little garrison 
there as to induce ten of its number to join them, leaving not thirty fighting 
men for its defense. ^ 

Sandusky station, on Pleasant run, in Washington county, was about the 
same time built by a party led by James Sandusky. The latter was a brother 
of Jacob Sandusky, who, in 1774, was cut off from the station at Harrods- 
town by an Indian attack, and who traveled to the Cumberland river south- 
ward, procured a canoe and followed its waters to the Ohio and Mississippi, 
and on to New Orleans, and from thence by sea, via Baltimore, to Virginia. 
He joined his brother again at Sandusky station, where they dwelt until 
1785, and then removed to Jessamine county. ^ 

William Whitley was born in what is now Rockbridge county, Virginia, 
in August, 1749. Though an industrious tiller of the soil, with a limited 
knowledge of books and the outside world, he was gifted with the spirit of 
frontier enterprise. In January, 1775, having married Esther Fuller, a 
comely and worthy maiden of the neighborhood, and settled down to house- 
keeping, the rumors of the Eden-like land beyond the mountains reached his 
ears. "Esther," said he to his bride one day, "I hear fine reports of Ken- 
tucky, and if these be true, I think we could make a comfortable home and 
build up our fortunes there much more easily than here." "Then, Billy, if 
I were you, I would go and see," promptly replied the spirited woman. ^ 
In two days he was on the way, starting with only his brother-in-law, George 
Clark, but falling in with seven others on the route. Whether his perma- 
nent settlement at Whitley's station, in Lincoln county, two miles south-west 
of Crab Orchard, on Boone's trace, with his wife, was this year or after, we 
have no certain information. He was one of the bravest and most enter- 
prising among the pioneers, both in the defense of the country and in ad- 
vancing its material and civic interests. Of him, Marshall writes: "He 
made choice of a place in the south-eastern section of the rich land of Ken- 
tucky, where he became a most active, vigilant, and courageous defender of 
the country, whose fame will descend embalmed in history, with ample testi- 
monials of his valued services and his unselfish merits." At the site of this 
station was built a brick house, said to be the first erected in Kentucky, and 
which was yet standing ten years ago. The window sills were six feet above 
the floor, to prevent the Indians from spying or shooting into the rooms. 

About midsummer, and just after the capture of the three maidens at 
Boonesborough, Marshall relates that it was ascertained that a host of sav- 
ages had come into the country with hostile intentions, and, the better to 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 327. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 750. 3 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 41. 



COLONEL PATTERSON'S TRIP TO PITTSBURGH. 75 

effect their purposes according to their mode of warfare, had dispersed in 
small bands, and thus infested the different camps and stations, some of which 
had been recently erected. Says Colonel Floyd, in a letter to Colonel Will- 
iam Preston, dated at Boonesborough, July 21st: 

"Hinkson's settlement on Licking has been broken up. Nineteen of 
the settlers are now here on their way in, John Hinkson among the rest. 
They all seem deaf to anything we can say to dissuade them. Ten of our 
people, at least, are going to join them, which will leave us with less than 
thirty men at this fort. I think more than three hundred have left the 
country since I came out, and not one has arrived except a few cabincers 
down the Ohio." 

Two weeks before, the Indians had harassed the Licking settlers, killed 
John Cooper, and done much damage to stock and property. \\\ this sec- 
tion improvements had extended, and several little neighborhood colonies 
had been added to those of the year before, and the ifnprovers had increased 
their plantings of corn, potatoes, peach stones, and apple seeds, with a view 
to home like permanency. The region was nearly depopulated, as the pre- 
caution to build a strong defensive fort, as at Boonesborough and Harrods- 
town, had not been taken. Others sought refuge in McClelland's fort at 
Georgetown Spring, among whom were Captain Haggin, some from Hink- 
son's, and others from Drennon's Lick in Henry county. 

Colonel Patterson, one of the leading men in building this fort at Royal 

Spring, with six others, started on a trip to Pittsburgh, to replenish the supply 

^ ^^^^ ^^ B^^=~^ of ammnnitinn and Other necessaries, which had 

^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^v run very low. Halting a few days at Blue 

^^^^^ , ., -*\^ falo meat for their journey, they passed 

^^^^H^^^^ ^^ o" to Limestone (now Maysviller), where 

W^^^^^^P^' ^~^^J obtained a canoe, and ascended as 

^^^^■ffiik ^ ' -r:- I far up as Point Pleasant, at the mouth of 

^^^^^^ ^ ' ' the Kanawha, without interruption from 

^^^^^^^S^SJL -^with great caution, sleeping without fire, 

^H^^^^^^S^&l^^g and starting before the break of day, and 

^^^^H^^P^.- ^^^^P^''^'^^"^ °^^ ^^^^^^ cured meats for daily ra- 
^^^i^^^ "''s^v -v--~^^ tions. 1 Late in the evening, on the 12th of 
COL. ROBERT PATTERSON. Octobcr, they landed a few miles below the 
mouth of Hockhocking, on the north side of the Ohio, and, contrary to 
usual practice, made a fire, being less cautious as they neared the settle- 
ments. They laid upon their arms around the fire, and at dead of night 
were attacked by eleven Indians, who gave them a volley and then fell on 
them with their tomahawks. Colonel Patterson's right arm was broken by 
two balls in it, and a tomahawk sunk into his side between severed ribs, 

I Collins. Vol. IL, p. 699. 



70 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

penetrating to the cavity. He sprang out into the darkness and got clear, 
supposing all his companions killed. He made for the river, in hopes of get- 
ting into the canoe and floating down to Point Pleasant; but as he approached 
it, he found an Indian in it. Soon the whole Indian party got aboard and 
floated down the river. Colonel Patterson succeeded in reaching the fire 
again, where he found a companion named Templeton, wounded very much 
like himself; another named Warnock, wounded dangerously; and Perry, 
wounded slightly. Of the other three, one was killed, one missing, and 
Mitchell remained unhurt. They had saved but one gun and some ammu- 
nition. The next morning Warnock was unable to move, when they arranged 
for Perry to try and reach Grave creek and bring aid, while Mitchell remained 
to care for the others. Warnock soon died, and the others sought shelter 
under a projecting cliff some two hundred yards distant from the camp, until 
relieved by the assistance brought by Perry. After eight days of suffering 
and nursing, they were removed to Grave creek. Patterson lay twelve 
months under the surgeon's care. 

Before the close of the year 1776, the pioneer defenders were to experi- 
ence the first attempt by the Indians at an investment and assault on one of 
their fortified stations, on the issue of which would certainly depend the 
question of holding their possessions in Kentucky for the future. In regard 
to their method of siege and attack, Marshall, who was cotemporary with 
the pioneer age of the Commonwealth, gives the following graphic descrip- 
tion: "The Indian manner of besieging a place is somewhat singular, and 
will appear novel to those who have derived their ideas of a siege from the 
tactics of regular armies. It is such, however, as profound reflection or 
acute practical observation, operating by existing circumstances, would dic- 
tate. They have not great armies nor battering engines, nor have they 
learned the use of the scaling ladder. Besides, caution, the natural offspring 
of weakness, is more observed than courage. To secure himself is the first 
object of the Indian warrior; to kill his enemy, the next. Hence, in besieg- 
ing a place, they are seldom seen in force upon any quarter, but dispersed, 
and acting individually or in small parties. They conceal themselves in the 
bushes or weeds, behind trees or stumps, waylay the path or places to which 
their enemies resort, and when one or more can be taken down they fire the 
gun or let fly the arrow aimed at the mark. If necessary, they retreat; if 
they dare, they advance upon their killed or crippled adversary, and take his 
scalp or make him prisoner, if possible. They aim to cut off the garrison 
supplies by killing the cattle, and watch the watering-places for those who go 
for that article of prime necessity, that they may, by these means, reduce the 
place to their possession or destroy the inhabitants in detail. In the night 
they will place themselves near the fort gate, ready to sacrifice the first person 
who may appear in the morning; in the day, if there be any cover, such as 
grass, a bush, a little mound of earth, or a large stone, they will avail them- 
selves of it to approach the fort by slipping forward, face downward, within 



ATTACK ON m'CLELLAND's FORT. 77 

gun-shot, and then whoever appears gets the fire, while the assailant makes 
his retreat behind the smoke from his gun. At other times they approach 
the walls or palisades with the utmost audacity, and attempt to fire them or 
beat down the gate. They often make feints to draw out the garrison on one 
side of the fort, and, if opportune, enter it by surprise on the other. When 
their stock of provision is exhausted by protracted siege, this being an indi- 
vidual affair, they supply themselves by hunting ; then frequently return to 
the siege, if by any means they hope to increase the number of their scalps. 

"Such was the enemy who infested Kentucky, and with whom the early 
adventurers had to contend. In the combat they were brave, in defeat they 
were dexterous, in victory they were cruel. Neither sex nor age nor the 
prisoner was exempted from their tomahawk or scalping knife. They saw 
their perpetual enemy taking possession of their hunting-ground, to them 
the source of amusement, of supply, and of traffic; and they were deter- 
mined to dispute it to the utmost extent of their means. Had they pos- 
sessed the skill which combines individual effort with a concerted attack, 
and had they directed their whole force against each of the few and feeble 
forts in succession, instead of dissipating strength by attacking all at the 
same time, they could easily have rid Kentucky of its new inhabitants, and 
once more restored it to the buffalo and the Indian. The usual result was 
to inflict great distress on the settlers, to kill some of them, and to destroy 
their crops and cattle, without being able to capture the forts. 

"Of the settlers, it is to be said that they acquired fortitude, confidence, 
and dexterity in proportion to the occasional pressure. In the most diffi- 
cult times the Indians were obliged to retire into the woods for game or for 
safety, and generally by night they withdrew to encamp at a distance. In 
these intervals the white men would plow their corn, gather their crops, or 
get up their cattle, or hunt the buffalo, the deer, and bear for their food. 
When traveling, they left the beaten paths, and frequently employed the 
night in going to and from the garrison, often exchanging shots with the 
enemy." 

On the 29th of December, McClelland's fort, with some twenty men to 
garrison it, was invested and threatened by about fifty Indians under the 
Mingo chief, Pluggy, quite noted as a warrior; the same who had recently 
defeated Colonel John Todd and party, in their expedition to Mason county 
to convoy in the powder donated by Virginia through Major Clark. The 
garrison sallied out imprudently to attack, and were repulsed by the Indians. 
McClelland and two of his men were killed and four wounded; among the 
latter Colonel Todd and Captain Edward Worthington, both men of promi- 
nence and worth. The Indian chief, Pluggy, was slain, among others of 
the Indians, and they at once abandoned further effort and withdrew. This 
station was soon after abandoned, amid the lament of the men and women 
there, who sought safety within the stronger palisades of Harrodstown. ^ 

I Collins, Vol. II., p 699. 



78 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The first mention made of divine service in Kentucky was in Hender- 
son's diary: '■'■Sunday, 28th May, ijjj. — Divine service, for the first time 
in Kentucky, was performed by the Rev. John Lythe, of the Church of 
England." This was doubtless under the shade of the grand old elm, of 
which Henderson speaks in raptures in this same diary. No doubt Rev. 
Lythe often repeated such services at Boonesborough and elsewhere, and 
especially at Harrodstown, where he made his home, Says Collins: "The 
first preaching in Mercer county was at the Big Spring, on the farm recently 
owned by William Payne, and now within the corporate limits of Harrods- 
burg, by Revs. Peter Tinsley and William Hickman, Baptist ministers, from 
the text, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be 
like his." The congregation assembled at the edge of the spring, under the 
shade of a magnificent elm tree, the stump and roots of which were remain- 
ing in 1873. This was early in May, 1776. ^ 

These incidents, seemingly trivial, unfold to us the rude and robust hab- 
its of the foresters, unsubdued by conventional forms and usages. In its 
social, civil, and religious phases and expressions, the life of no community 
of people was ever more unrestrained and independent in the citizen. These 
characteristics gave an intense individuality and self-reliance to each man; 
yet with an implied and tacit reserve that the crude little social fabrics 
demanded that no one should, with impunity, use his liberty for a license 
to do a wanton wrong or injustice to his neighbor. Behind the outward 
manifestation of this personal freedom of opinion and action, there was a 
profound respect for social purity, profound regard for civil authority, and 
a profound reverence for the worship of the true God; traits of sentiment 
never found absent from the Anglo-Saxon mind, and the observance of 
which has given to the modern world its finest types, in Anglo-Saxon and 
Anglo-American civilization. Kentucky doubtless, at this time, had her full 
quota of lawless and reckless spirits ; but the main body of the settlers were 
men of earnest and honest purpose, who were ever forward in upholding 
the principles of law and order. Among the whole were some of gifted and 
sagacious minds, and of practical education and experience — men whose 
genius, in older and populous governments, where the theaters of opportu- 
nity were broader and more fruitful, would have placed them in the front 
ranks as civilians, as statesmen, or as military chieftains. All classes were 
represented in these advance guards of pioneers, who ventured to the fertile 
and expansive wilderness to repair their fortunes or to build their homes. 

The importance of the Kentucky district of Fincastle county, of which 
it was still a part, could no longer remain unobserved by the government 
of Virginia. When the Legislature of the State assembled, such was the 
disposition to accommodate the people of this remote part of its territory 
with the benefits of civil and military organization, that an act was passed, 
on the 6th of December, to erect Kentucky county out of the south-west ter- 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 617. 



LEGISLATIVE ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE COLONISTS. 79 

ritory of Fincastle county, '-lying south and westward of a line beginning 
on the Ohio, at the mouth of Great Sandy, and running up the same, and 
the north-easterly branch thereof, to the Great Laurel ridge or Cumberland 
mountain, and with that to the line of North Carolina.'"' 

This was a measure of great importance to the colonists. To this time 
they had no voice in the choosing of civil magistrates and a protective 
police, none in the election of representatives in the Legislature of the 
parent government, and none in the regular military organizations for de- 
fense. Now they would be entitled to two representatives, to have a county 
■court of civil jurisdiction in matters of law and equity, to justices of the 
peace, military officers, sheriff, and other county officers ; in fine, to be a 
■civil municipality, with powers competent for all the wants of local govern- 
ment. 



8o 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XL 



Kentucky county organized. 

Quarterly court opened, with power to sit 
monthly. 

Settlements reduced. 

Intrigues of the English to incite the 
North-west Indians to hostilities. 

Civilization, outraged. 

The French guilty of similar crimes. 

Captain Smith's narrative. 

Instigated only by vengeance and malice, 
passions common to all conditions of war- 
like strife. 

Ray party attacked near Harrodstown. 

Rescued by McGary, 

Ray's fleetness of foot. 

Foils an attack on Harrodstown. 

Ruse of the Indians to draw out the 
garrison. 

Defeated in this. 

McConnell killed. 

Ray escapes again. 

Fort closed on him. 

James Ray's invaluable services while 
yet a boy. 

Indian ambuscade near the fort discov- 
ered by cattle. 

Major Clark routs them. 

Pursuing, finds the main camp. 

Kenton and Haggin attacked near 
Hinkson's. 

Escape to Boonesborough. 

Organized band of spies patrol the Ohio 
border. 

Boonesborough attacked. 

Rattling fight. 

Kenton kills three Indians, and carries 
Boone, wounded, into the fort. 



Indians disperse. 

Gloomy outlook for the foresters. 

Weak stations abandoned. 

Reduced garrisons in the stronger. 

Shaler's description of the fort. 

Boonesborough again besieged. 

Feints made on Harrodstown and St. 
Asaph's. 

Savages defeated and siege raised. 

Captain Smith pursues and defeats two 
bands of Indians. 

Colonel Logan njoves his family all to St. 
Asaph's. 

This fort attacked. 

Colonel Logan's daring rescue of the 
wounded 

Desperate defense. 

Powder nearly exhausted. 

No supply nearer than Holston, in Vir- 
ginia. 

Logan resolves to secure it, or perish. 

Goes for it, and returns successful. 

Two months' siege. 

Food supply nearly gone. 

Colonel Bowman, with one hundred 
men, relieves the garrison. 

British amnesty proclamation found on 
one of the slain soldiers 

Logan attacks an Indian party at Flat 
Lick. 

His right arm broken by a bullet. 

Clark sends spies to Illinois. 

Census of Harrodstown. 

Relief party reach Boonesborough. 

The Long Knife. 

The late season brings some rest and re- 
lief to the harassed settlers. 



The period of the earlier months of this year (1777) was not an auspi- 
cious one for the future of the settlers. During the latter half of the previous 
year, the Indians, dispersed in small bands, had spread destruction and 
dismay throughout the land, and the more exposed improvements were gen- 
erally abandoned. It was the custom of many improvers to come out in the 



GREAT BRITAIN IN LEAGUE WITH THE INDIANS. 8[ 

spring and extend their clearings, plant their seeds and fruit trees, gather in 
and consume the temporary supplies, and then return to spend the winter 
in the old colony, with a view to a permanent move of family and home at 
a safer day in the future. We read from Colonel Floyd's letter that Boones- 
borough was left with thirty guns but a few months before. The foresters 
did not return with re-enforcements at the opening of this season, as they 
did the last. The reduced settlers, however, were destined soon to be visited 
with incursions of more formidable bodies of Indians than had yet ventured 
to invade the disputed ground of strife. 

The war of the Revolution had now been in progress for nearly two 
years, since the hostile demonstrations at Lexington and Bunker's Hill. 
Six months ago, the Delaration of Independence was signed, and the vow 
for liberty or death found an echo of sympathy in the hearts of all true 
American colonists. It was more an obvious fact than an open secret 
that Great Britain was, from the frontier posts of Canada and the forts of 
Vincennes and Kaskaskia, not only furnishing the Miami tribes and their 
North-west confederates with arms and munitions of war, but inciting them 
with the arts and intrigue of unscrupulous diplomacy. They lured them with 
gifts and bribes to wage a war upon the feeble Kentucky colonies, which 
they well knew, after the Indian fashion, meant nothing less than butchery 
of men, women, and children, and mutilation and savage outrage, wherever 
it might be possible for them to commit such atrocities. Ashamed to license 
their own regular troops to violate the laws of civilized warfare, the English 
Government did not scruple to purchase and employ the crudest of savages 
to perform these revolting crimes against a people of their own kindred and 
blood, and with whom they were but recently allied in the fraternal bonds 
of a common citizenship. 

To add to the enormity of this national crime of the English Government, 
so often committed and repeated on the children of Kentucky, wherever her 
armies have invaded or her gold corrupted, the scenes of savage cruelty, 
aided and abetted by the French in the war ending with the treaty of Paris, 
in 1763, and perpetrated upon her own captive soldiers, were vivid and 
fresh upon the pages of her journals and military reports. The protest of 
her people against the barbarous cruelty of these should have restrained 
the fratricidal hand, and taught her not to neglect the quality of mercy in the 
policies of warfare against her own children, however wayward they seemed. 
We quote from the narrative of Colonel James Smith, an old Indian fighter, 
long a prisoner with the Indians, and for years a member of the Legislature 
of Pennsylvania, and who moved to and settled in Bourbon county, Ken- 
tucky, in 1788. He was a captive and an eye-witness of some of the 
cruelties of the Indians in the presence of French officers, at Fort Duquesne, 
now Pittsburgh, toward the English prisoners brought in after Braddock's 
defeat. He says:^ 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 78. 



82 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

"About sunset on the day of the battle, I heard at a distance the well- 
known scalp hallo, followed by wild, quick, joyful shrieks, and accompanied 
by long-continued firing of guns. This too surely announced the fate of 
the day. About dusk, the party returned to the fort, driving before them 
twelve British regulars, stripped naked, and with their faces painted black, 
an evidence that the unhappy wretches were devoted to death. Next came 
the Indians, displaying their bloody scalps, of which they had immense num- 
bers, and dressed in the scarlet coats, sashes, and military hats of the officers 
and soldiers. Behind all came a train of baggage-horses, ladened with piles 
of booty and scalps, canteens, and all the accoutrements of British soldiers. 
The savages appeared frantic with joy, and when I beheld them entering the 
fort, dancing, yelling, and brandishing their red tomahawks, and waving their 
scalps in the air, while the great guns of the fort replied to the incessant 
discharge of rifles without, it looked as if h — 11 had given a holiday, and 
turned loose its inhabitants. The most melancholy spectacle was the band 
of prisoners. They were dejected and anxious. Poor fellows! they had 
but a few months before left London, at the command of their superiors, 
and we may easily imagine their feelings at the strange and dreadful spec- 
tacle around them. The yells of delight and congratulation were scarcely 
over, when those of vengeance began. The devoted prisoners — British 
regulars — were led out from the fort to the banks of the Alleghany, and to 
the eternal disgrace of the French commandant, were burnt to death at the 
stake, one after another, with the most awful tortures. I stood upon the 
battlements and witnessed the shocking spectacle. The prisoner was tied 
to a stake, with his hands raised above his head, stripped naked, and sur- 
rounded by Indians. They would touch him with red-hot irons, and stick 
his body full of pine spUnters and set them on fire, drowning the shrieks of 
the victim in the yells of delight with which they danced around him. His 
companions in the meantime stood in a group near the stake, and had a 
foretaste of what was in store for each one of them. As fast as one prisoner 
died under his tortures, another filled his place, until the whole perished. 
All this took place so near the fort that every scream of the victims must 
have rung in the ears of the French commandant." 

All this nature and usage of these savages in war were familiar to the 
mind and experience of the British Government and its military representa- 
tives. To add intensity to the repugnant horror which should have restrained 
them from engaging such allies or instruments to war upon the exposed and 
unsheltered frontiersmen, they knew that these and like barbarous atroci- 
ties, which had sealed in death the tortures of captive British soldiers at Fort 
Duquesne, would not only be visited upon the citizen soldiers of Kentucky, 
but on the aged non-combatant, the sainted pure mother and maiden, and 
the cradling infant as well. Hundreds of spots in Kentucky are stained 
with the blood of these innocents, murdered by Indian rifle, or arrow, or 
tomahawk, to appease the cruel vengeance of England's rulers against her 



I'HE RESISTANCE OF THE BACKWOODSMEN. 83 

colonist children for the constructive crime of loving liberty and hating tyr- 
anny. The guilt of these crimes against humanity will stand out upon the 
pages of history, an indictment and verdict of the common sentiment of 
mankind, more against the rulers of the British Government than against 
the ignorant and wretched instruments whom they purchased or incited to 
do the revolting deeds. How many families of to-day yet hold among their 
ancestral traditions, reminiscences of these savage cruelties perpetrated on 
some kindred grandparent, maiden, or babe, and instigated by the remorse- 
less vengeance of the English authorities, from 1776 to the close of the war 
of 1812. 

We treat this method of warfare as prompted only by vengeance, for it 
could by no possibility have any favorable bearing toward the English side 
in the issues of legitimate war between that country and the colonies. On 
the other hand, the effect that followed was to arouse an indignant resistance 
on the part of the stern backwoodsmen, and to lead to those measures of 
retaliation which not only visited terrible punishment on the guilty Indian 
tribes, but accomplished the downfall of the frontier forts garrisoned and 
held by the guiltier English. 

We have not discussed this episode of history in any spirit of prejudice 
against the English Government and people. They were then, and are now, 
the best types of European development. We have seen that the French 
were just as guilty in instigating their Indian allies to deeds of savage cruelty 
and atrocity against their enemies in war, in violation of civilized usages. 
Any nation of Europe at war with another would have pursued the same 
revengeful and inhuman practices, if the same tempting opportunities had 
offered. The spirit of revenge and cruelty in warfare is not an incident 
peculiar to any nation of people, civilized or not. War is in itself anger, 
strife, and retaliation. Its existence implies the dominance of the unbridled 
spirit of revenge and cruelty; a spirit that lies latent in times of peace, in 
that greatest of necessary evils in a government — its military arm and equip- 
ment — and which finds its worst expression in the midst of the storm and 
carnage of warfare. It converts the civilized into the barbarian, and the 
barbarian into the fiend incarnate. It sweeps along the multitude with 
the resistless tide of angry and violent sentiment, and if the few resist the 
temptation to be cruel and remorseless, it is because they can be better than, 
and superior to their surroundings. Against this spirit of war, our condemna- 
tion and protest may properly be directed when we recall the sufferings 
of our ancestors from the cruelties of savages. The apology that the Eng- 
lish did, perhaps, only what any other warring nation would have done 
under like circumstances may be urged. And yet this view does not excuse 
or atone for the guilt of the crimes in question, for no nation claiming to be 
civilized should have been their author. 

The militia had just organized at Harrodstown, under the provisions 
of government for the new county. About the same date, James Ray, 



84 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

afterward the noted frontiersman, General James Ray, but now a youth of 
seventeen, his younger brother, and two neighbors, WiUiam Coomes and 
Thos. Shores, were engaged in clearing land at Shawanee Springs, for Col- 
onel Hugh McGary, who had married Mrs. Ray, the mother of the two- 
boys named. 

The Ray boys and Shores visited a neighboring sugar-camp to drink of 
the maple water, leaving Coomes at the clearing. After being alone some 
time, Coomes suddenly saw a body of fifteen Indians coming toward him 
from the direction of the sugar-camp. Concealing himself behind the trunk 
of a tree just felled, he cocked his rifle and awaited developments. For- 
tunately, the thick cane and undergrowth aided in his concealment as they 
passed near by in Indian file. Coomes then escaping, started toward the 
sugar-camp to find what had become of his companions. Discovering no- 
trace of them, he hid himself in the boughs of a fallen tree, the dried 
leaves of which were nearly the color of his butternut garments. Shortly, 
he observed forty Indians halt near the sugar-camp, and these to be rejoined 
by the fifteen whom he had previously seen. They tarried a long time, 
singing their war-songs and dancing their war -dances. Coomes witnessed, 
all this at a distance of only sixty yards. Other straggling Indians came in, 
until the number increased to seventy. ^ 

From Rev. Dr. Spaulding's sketches, we continue the narrative: " Mean- 
time, James Ray had escaped, and communicated the alarm to the people. 
Great was the terror and confusion there. The hot-headed McGary openly 
charged James Harrod with having been wanting in the precautions and 
courage necessary for the defense of the fort. These two men, who had a 
personal enmity against each other, quarreled, and leveled their deadly rifles 
at each others' bosoms. In this conjuncture, the wife of McGary rushed in 
and turned aside the rifle of her husband, when Harrod immediately with- 
drew his, and the difficulty was temporarily adjusted. 

"McGary insisted that a party of thirty should be immediately dispatched 
with him in search of Coomes, Shores, and his other step-son, William Ray. 
Harrod and Colonel Clark thought this measure rash and imprudent, as all 
the men were necessary for the defense of the place, liable to be attacked 
any moment. At length, however, the request of McGary was granted, 
and thirty men were placed under his command for the expedition. The 
detachment moved rapidly, and soon reached the sugar-camp, which the 
Indians had abandoned. Near it, they discovered the mangled remains of 
William Ray, at sight of which McGary turned pale, and came very near 
falling from his horse in a faint. At first sight of the lifeless body, one of 
the men shouted out: 'See there! they have killed poor Coomes.' Coomes 
just sallying from his hiding-place, overheard the exclamation as he came 
up, and answered: 'No, they haven't killed me, by Job! I'm safe!' With 
the burial of young Ray, the party returned about sunset to Harrodstown."" 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 611. 



REPULSE OF THE INDIANS. ' 85 

It seems that the elder brother Ray escaped the fire of the Indians, and 
ran with wonderful speed toward the fort, four miles away, distancing all the 
Indians in pursuit, and thus gave a timely warning that probably saved the 
reduced garrison from a surprise attack. 

James Ray became celebrated for his swiftness of foot, and this quality 
served its valuable uses, not only in saving his person more than once from 
captivity or death, but by deliverance of the settlements from impending 
dangers. The remarkable speed with which Ray outran all the warriors 
of Blackfish on the above occasion elicited the highest admiration of the 
Indians, and led that noted chief to remark to Boone, after the capture of 
the latter at Blue Licks, that "some boy at Harrodstown had outrun all his 
■warriors." Thomas Shores, reported dead, years after returned from cap- 
tivity among the Indians. 

The warning was most opportune. The Indians delayed the attack they 
had meditated on the fort a day or two, still in hope to gain an advantage 
by strategy or surprise after the warning given by Ray. On the morning of 
the 7th of March, a cabin, situated a few hundred yards from the fort, was 
stealthily fired. The garrison, supposing the burning an accident, rushed 
out to extinguish the flames. The Indians had committed the incendiary 
act, to decoy the garrison into an exposed position, where they could take 
them at a disadvantage, and by a sudden flank move they endeavored to 
intercept their return to their shelter. As usual, the cautious woodsmen went 
out with loaded rifles in hand, and gradually falling back, after some firing, 
they reached a piece of woods on an elevation — the same on which the 
Court-house at Harrodsburg now stands — where each man took a tree, and 
from this position soon repelled the Indians and made their way back into 
the fort. Several were killed and wounded on both sides, but it is probable 
that the Indians suffered the severest loss. They at once withdrew their 
forces from the vicinity. 

Soon after this, one McConneU and Ray were practicing firing their rifles 
at a mark — a frequent pastime with Western men — when McConneU was 
shot dead from ambush. Ray, discovering the Indian, leveled his rifle to 
shoot him in revenge for the death of his companion, but found himself 
suddenly beset by a large body of Indians, who had crept up unseen. For 
nearly two hundred yards, Ray was exposed to their fire in his retreat, which 
was accomplished at his best speed. But when he neared the fort, with the 
Indians in hot pursuit, those inside did not dare to open the gate for his 
admission. In this most critical situation, in range of the guns of the enemy 
and refused shelter by his friends, Ray had the last alternative to throw him- 
self flat on the ground behind a stump, just large enough to cover his body. 
He lay in this position four hours, the bullets of the enemy whistling by and 
sprinkling his clothes with the torn earth, within but seven yards of the 
walls, with his mother's anxious voice in his ears. The savages did not dare 
to draw nearer, nor he to uncover. At last Ray, at the happy suggestion 



86 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of the moment, called out: "For God's sake, dig a hole under the cabin 
wall and take me in!" The thought of the expedient was immediately 
adopted, and the young hunter was introduced in safety to his kindred and 
friends, to the great relief of all. 

During this year the Indians hovered in large numbers around Harrods- 
town and in the vicinity; it seemed for the purpose of preventing any corn 
from being raised by the setders. Not only was this important supply cut 
off, but of forty horses brought out by Colonel McGary and others, there 
was but one left to the use of the setders, and this somewhat the worse for 
age and hard usage. In this period of distress and peril the agile and daring 
boy, James Ray, proved an indispensable arm of relief. His vigilance and 
fertility of resource seemed to admit of no limit. He often arose before day 
and left the fort on the old horse which yet remained, in order to replenish 
the scanty supply of food for the garrison. Cautiously finding his way toward 
Salt river along some covert path or through the undergrowth, he would ride 
in the waters of that or some tributary stream, in order to conceal his tracks; 
and when out far enough to avoid the hearing of his rifle by the savages, he 
would kill his load of game and bring it in under nightfall. Throughout 
these frequent adventures he escaped unhurt, while other hunters often per- 
ished in the undertaking of similar feats. 

It was the approach of autumn, and the staple resource, outside of wild 
meat, of roasting ears, and corn meal, was mainly cut off. The people felt 
the need of substitutes. The ground was being cleared about two hundred 
yards north-west of the fort for a turnip patch. An Indian was shot at by 
one of the guards while the clearing was going on, and the men withdrew. 
The next day the few cattle left, while grazing in sight, seemed unusually 
disturbed, and were observed to sniff the air with impatience as the breeze 
came over a small field that had been left to grow up in high weeds. The 
presence of concealed Indians there was at once suspected, as this excite- 
ment of brute instinct was never manifested by the familiar presence of the 
whites. Colonel Clark resolved to turn the ambuscade on the hostiles. 
Directing some to continue working in the turnip field, and to occasionally 
call to their companions in the fort to come on and join them, Clark led a 
party of men to the rear of the suspected spot, and suddenly attacked them 
lying in the weeds. Four of the Indians were left dead, one killed by Clark, 
and one by young Ray. The fleeing foe was pursued but a short distance 
until within four hundred yards of the fort, down the creek, the whites sud- 
denly came upon an extensive Indian camp, with two rows of camp lines 
and poles between for hanging their kettles, that might have accommodated 
five or six hundred red skins. Here, under the very shadow of the fort, 
they had fixed their main rendezvous, and kept their camp concealed almost 
in double rifle shot of the closed gates and reduced garrison, while they spo- 
liated on the country around. The main body had evidently abandoned this 
extensive camp, and the Indians last attacked were but a remnant of rear 



KENTON ATTACKED NEAR HINKSON's. 87 

guards. As this was the first of the foe that young Ray was known to have 
killed, Major Clark complimented him with a presentation of the gun of his 
victim. The rest of the Indian property captured was, after the custom, 
divided by lot among the soldiers. 

The organized militia of Kentucky county was early this year put under 
the general command of Colonel George Rogers Clark, whose presence and 
heroic spirit at this most critical period served more than all else to inspire 
confidence and hope to the scattered frontiersmen, whose numbers were so 
thinned out by the exodus of the last fall and winter. 

Early this spring, Colonel Clark sent Kenton, Haggin, and four others 
on the north side to Hinkson's to break out some fla.x and hemp left at this 
abandoned station. ^ They espied some Indians encamped around the sta- 
tion. Kenton, ever prudent as he was brave, counseled a retreat. Haggin 
swore that only a coward would run without one fire. Kenton at once dis- 
mounted, and all followed his example except a young Dutchman, who 
seems to have kept his head in the midst of the general folly. The alert 
Indians by this time discovered the whites and opened fire on them, when 
the latter beat a most timely retreat, Haggin in the lead of all, abandoning 
their horses, all except the wise Dutchman, who cantered home with his ser- 
viceable horse. Kenton directed the party to make their way to Harrods- 
town, while he put the garrison at Boonesborough on guard. He took the 
precaution not to attempt to enter the fort before dark, knowing well the 
wiles of the savages. This saved his life, for when he did enter he found 
the men bearing in the bodies of two men slain but two or three hours before 
on the same path that he would have trodden. 

Colonel Clark now felt the need of organizing a body of spies to traverse 
the frontier borders, watch the Indians, and give timely notice of their move- 
ments. Under his order, Boone appointed Simon Kenton and Thomas 
Brooks; Harrod named Samuel Moon and Bates Collier; and Logan, John 
Conrad and John Martin. Each week, in turn, they ranged by twos up 
and down the Ohio and about the deserted stations, looking for Indian signs. 
This was of great benefit to the harassed settlers, but not uniformly effectual 
against stealthy approaches, even with the veteran Kenton himself, as nar- 
rated by Collins: - 

"Kenton and two others, about this time, were standing in the gate of 
Boonesborough fort one morning with their guns loaded, ready for a hunt, 
when two men at work in the field near by were fired on by Indians. They 
immediately fled, not being hurt. The Indians pursued, and a warrior over- 
took and tomahawked one of the men within seventy yards of the fort, and 
proceeded to scalp him. Kenton shot the daring savage dead, and imme- 
diately, with his hunting companions, gave chase to the others. Boone, 
hearing the firing, with ten men hastened to the assistance of his spies. 
Kenton turned and observed an Indian taking aim at the party of Boone, 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 445. 2 Collins, Vol. IL, pp. 445-6. 



88 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and, quick as thought, brought his rifle to his shoulder, pulled the trigger, 
and the red man dropped dead at the report of the gun. Boone, having 
advanced some distance, now discovered that his small party, consisting of 
fourteen men, was cut ofif from the fort by a large body of the foe which 
had got between him and the gate. There was no time to be lost. Boone 
gave the word, 'Rightabout! fire! charge!' and the intrepid hunters dashed 
in among their adversaries, in a desperate effort to regain the fort. At the 
first fire from the Indians, seven of the fourteen whites were wounded: 
among the number, the gallant Boone, whose leg was broken, which stretched 
him on the ground. An Indian sprang on him with uplifted tomahawk; but 
before the blow descended, Kenton, everywhere present in the midst of the 
strife, rushed on the warrior, discharged his gun into his breast, then lifted 
up and bore his leader into the fort. When the gate was closed and all 
secure, Boone sent for Kenton. 'Well, Simon,' said the old pioneer, 'you 
have behaved yourself like a man to-day; indeed, you are a fine fellow.' 
This was great praise from Boone, who was a silent man, little given to com- 
pliment. Kenton well deserved the eulogium. He had saved the life of 
his captain and killed three Indians, but had been kept too busy to scalp any 
one of them. The enemy, after keeping up the siege three days, retired." 

The Indians, wholly unskilled in the civilized methods of storming or 
besieging fortified posts, and untrained in that open, daring, and disciplined 
firmness necessary, to carry them by assault, failing to surprise, and despair- 
ing of success by force, dispersed to the forests again from before Boones- 
borough, as before Harrodstown, where their skill and numbers gave them 
the decided superiority. These attacks on the forts must have resulted in 
losses to themselves, out of all proportion to the killed and wounded of the 
whites. As it was a point of interest with them to conceal the evidences 
of injury inflicted in battle, they skillfully removed their dead and wounded, 
whenever possible, from the view of their enemy. 

The elements of aggressive growth and strength in the infant colony had 
well-nigh disappeared, and the ominous cloud of discouragement veiled its 
future from the hopeful visions of its best tried and most enduring friends. 
We have mentioned the general abandonment of all the unfortified stations 
and settlements, and the concentration of the remaining settlers at the three 
leading stockade forts, on the south side of the Kentucky river. It will 
convey an idea of the defensive feebleness of the country when the fact 
is noted that the regular garrison of Boonesborough was now reduced to 
twenty-two guns ; of Harrodstown to sixty-five guns; and of St. Asaph's to 
fifteen guns, in pioneer phrase. Even these militiamen were temporarily 
enlisted, and liable to leave at the expiration of their limited engagements. 
These garrisons, in cases of siege or attack, must depend for re-enforces upon 
the transient adventurers who might happen to be tarrying with them for the 
time. 

Professor Shaler, in his late learned and interesting generalization of 



DESCRIPTION OF THE FORT. 89 

Kentucky history, says of these rude specimens of fortified retreats: "This 
system of a defensive village differs in certain ways from anything known 
in other countries. I have been unable to find that it had been used at an 
earlier period in any other part of America outside of the Southern colonies. 
It probably never was in Europe. It is likely it is a modification of the 
Indian stockade already known to the early settlers. It is an admirable 
adaptation of the defensive quality of the log house to the modern rifle. 
When defended by a score or two of deliberate and determined men, such 
a fort can not be taken by escalade, for each block-house is a keep that has 
to be taken by a special assault. The only risk is from the enemy being 
able to fire the houses; but with a sufficient supply of water, a fire can 
readily be extinguished from the inside. Although there was no care in 
providing these structures with a moat or ditch, they proved remarkably 
successful forts, and were never carried against a reasonably good resist- 
ance. This pattern of stronghold became the type of all stations constructed 
in Kentucky and elsewhere. The weapon of these pioneers — the small- 
bored, long, heavy-barreled rifle — was the best gun ever used by the fron- 
tiersman in the forest. Its small charge made the supply of lead and powder 
less difficult than it would otherwise have been; and up to one hundred and 
fifty yards, the ordinary limit of forest ranges, it was a marvelouslyaccurate 
weapon. With one hundred sturdy men for a garrison, it would be very dif- 
ficult to take such a fortification, even with well-disciplined troops ; against 
Indian attacks it never failed to prove a sufficient defense." 

During all this year, Virginia was so deeply involved in the war of the 
Revolution, that the parent government could take no note of the wants of 
her distant and suffering child westward of the mountains. Kentucky must 
survive through self-reliance, or meet the inevitable alternative and perish 
of exhaustion. 

On the 4th of July, the Indians, re-enforced to an army of two hundred 
warriors, again laid siege to Boonesborough, resolved, if possible, to subdue 
and destroy the strongholds left of the whites, shrewdly supposing that such 
achievement would put an end to all further attempts upon the part of the 
intruding colonists to occupy their favorite hunting-grounds. The more 
certain to insure success, they had sent out detachments to demonstrate on 
Harrodstown and St. Asaph's, and to prevent re-enforcements from these 
neighboring allies. This attack continued for two days, during which time 
the enemy made close investment and vigorous effort, with all the arts of 
warfare in ordinary use by them. The garrison were equally vigilant, and 
sustained themselves in every contest, and with every advantage possible 
to them. The savages were baffled at every point and in every endeavor, 
invariably suffering losses under the deadly fire of the unerring rifles in the 
hunters' hands, from behind the wooden walls. No impression was made and 
no advantage was gained. At the end of the two days, one of the whites 
was killed and two wounded; of the Indians, seven were slain in sight of 



90 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the besieged. How many more were killed and wounded, and borne away- 
after the Indian custom of concealment, could not be known. Disheartened, 
the assaulting savages withdrew and retired to the woods again. 

In June, a party of Indians marauding near Boonesborough was followed 
by Major Smith, with seventeen men, to the Ohio river, where they killed 
one, the remainder managing safely to cross the river, i On returning, about 
twenty miles from the Ohio, they discovered another party of about thirty 
savages lying concealed in the bushes, but themselves unobserved. Dis- 
mounting, they left nine men to guard their horses, while Smith, with the 
remaining seven, crept forward to the near vicinity of the Indians, when 
one of the latter passed near the whites in the direction of the horses. At 
the crack of a single rifle, he gave a loud yell, and fell dead. The Indians, 
supposing that he had fired his own rifle and brought down some wild ani- 
mal, gave vent in a noisy fit of laughter. The deception gave the oppor- 
tunity, and Smith's party fired into the band of savages and charged upon 
them. The fire was returned, but the surprised enemy gave way in a panic 
and fled. Only John Martin, of the whites, was wounded. 

For prudential reasons. Colonel Logan had placed his wife and family at 
Harrodstown the previous year, remaining at St. Asaph's with his slaves and 
a number of comrade settlers, to extend his improvements and cultivate his. 
land. With more assurance of safety, he removed his household all to his 
new home, early in 1777. But the horizon soon grew dark with the gather- 
ing clouds of warning. 

On the 20th of May, Logan's fort was invested by about one hundred 
Indians — no doubt the same body, or a part of the same, that attacked Har- 
rodstown and Boonesborough. 2 While some of the women were outside at 
the morning milking, and several men standing guard, the Indians fired 011 
the latter from an adjacent cane-brake. One man was killed, another mor- 
tally and a third badly wounded. The rest escaped to the fort, at this time 
occupied by thirty-five men, women, and children. There were fifteen fight- 
ing men, and this number was weakened by three just fallen under the fire 
of the ambushed foe. Harrison, one of the wounded, ran staggering toward 
the fort, and fell with appealing cries for help. The savages could easily 
have shot him dead, but withheld their aim in the hope that comrades would 
venture out to his rescue, and become targets for their ready rifles. The 
interest of the tragic scene was intensified by the distressing cries of the 
loving wife, who, from behind the palisades, saw her wounded and writhing; 
husband lying in reach of the deadly weapons of a merciless enemy, and yet 
within a few steps of the sheltering walls of safety. It was a scene to touch 
the sympathies of the hardiest and to try the courage of the bravest of the 
soldiers. Together they had faced the issue of life and death often, but 
never before had the peril presented where the chances of escape with life 
hung by such a slender thread. Must Harrison be left to die? or should 

1 Collins, Vol. I., p. 528. 2 Marshall, p. 49. 



LOGAN S DARING RESCUE OF HARRISON. 9I 

another life sacrifice be offered in an attempt to save? Logan, as sympa- 
thetic as he was brave, volunteered his services, and called for some of his 
men to join him in the effort at rescue. All hesitated, until John Martin 
summoned resolution to go with Logan. Just as they passed out of the fort 
gate, Harrison raised on his hands and knees, as if he might be able to help 
himself, when under this pretext Martin withdrew into the fort again. There 
was too much of the hero in Logan to turn his face away from even certain 
death in the emergency after he had resolved. He rushed out to the wounded 
man, took him up in his stalwart arms, and bore him safely within the walls, 
amidst a continuous shower of bullets which spotted the walls and gate of 
the fort, but which a directing Providence warded from his person with an 
approving hand and a rewarding smile of recognition. He had given back 
a life, counted for dead, to wife and children and friends, at the risk of his 
own. How much nobler than to destroy a life ! 

The twelve guns within resolved to defend to the last, under the lead of 
Logan ; but one danger stared them in the face. The powder and ball ran 
low in supply; and if this siege should be protracted, it Avas but a question 
of time when they must be replenished, or fall into the hands of the merci- 
less savages. Holston, beyond Cumberland Gap, was the nearest source 
of supply; and to reach this point, the danger of Indian massacre must be 
incurred, while the reduced garrison must be weakened by the absence of 
the defenders. But the alternative was reached — to perish, or procure the 
ammunition. Logan volunteered to undertake the dangerous, again. With 
two trusty companions, he set out, leaving but nine guns to defend the thirty 
occupants of the fort, of whom were the loved of his own household — the 
dearest of earth to him. 

Starting by night, and avoiding beaten paths, the trio safely reached Hol- 
ston, and obtained the supplies. Directing his men how to bring on these, 
Logan hastened back, and by night entered the fort, absent only ten days. 
The siege was yet in progress, and the little band almost at the point of 
despair, as his return was the first assurance that the expedition to Holston 
was safely made. In grateful confidence, with spirits reanimated, they re- 
newed their resolve to resist to the last. 

Logan had shown himself the true woodsman and soldier in this advent- 
ure. Avoiding Boone's trace, where he knew that scouting Indians prowled 
in ambush, he pursued unbeaten paths through the forests, where no footstep 
of man had left an imprint before. Avoiding Cumberland Gap, he scaled 
the mountain sides, and crossed over where no Indians would ever likely 
waylay his party; clambering the cliffs, through brush and cane, and across 
rivers, only as a true man, sensible of the importance of the trust he had 
undertaken, could do. The escort, with the ammunition, arrived safely in 
due time, and this want was satisfied. 

But another want came urgently on the little garrison. The investment 
and siege by the Indians, begun on the 4th of July, was protracted into 



92 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

September, and the food supply ran low. Every night or two they were 
compelled to send out, before the break of day, some one to shoot and bring 
in wild meat, to appease the demands of hunger. They had long been cut off 
from all neighboring society and succor, and the isolation became painfully 
oppressive. Of neighbors, only those at Harrodstown and Boonesborough 
were left, and these too feeble and exposed to render assistance. Unexpected 
relief was nigh at hand. Colonel Bowman, at the head of one hundred men, 
marched from Virginia into Kentucky, in September, and fortunately directed 
his steps to Logan's fort. The first intimation the garrison had of their 
approach was the firing of the Indians on an advanced detachment of these 
troops, which they had ambushed, and several of whom they killed. The 
main body coming up, however, the Indians gave way and allowed them to 
enter the fort without further fighting. The siege was at once raised, and 
the Indians dispersed to the woods. 

It seemed a misfortune that any of this advance guard should have fallen 
by the fire from the concealed foe, but on examination there was found on 
the person of one of the slain soldiers copies of proclamations, which had 
been prepared in Canada and sent in by the British governor of that province, 
offering protection to such of the inhabitants as would abjure the republic 
and return to allegiance to the crown, and closing with denunciations of 
vengeance against such as refused. The man who found the papers very con- 
siderately gave them to Colonel Logan. He thought it most prudent to 
conceal their contents, lest their invocations and their threats, operating on 
the minds of a people worn down by perils, privations, and distress, the end 
of which could not be foreseen, might have the effect of diminishing their 
fortitude or of shaking their fidelity. 

The conclusion was wise, for although the arrival of Colonel Bowman's 
troops had given a new inspiration of hope to the settlers for a time, yet it 
soon became known that they were engaged for but a short time in service, 
and that their return home would very shortly follow their discharge. The 
country would probably soon be again left a prey to the savages instigated 
by British agents on the frontier and in Canada. Indeed, the time of enlist- 
ment had expired with several, who were about to return to Virginia. 

A more recent investigation of authorities gives a version of this incident 
differing from the one accepted in past histories. On the body of one of 
the white soldiers slain near the fort, an Indian placed a parcel of papers. 
On going out to look after the corpse, these were found, addressed to the 
commander and officers of the garrison. They were privately opened, and 
found to contain proclamations of the purport and character mentioned, but 
directed to the officers exclusively. This version more plausibly explains 
why Colonel Logan should have held under the seal of secrecy the suspicious 
documents. They could have done little harm where there was a common 
hate of England, but the pride of Logan was touched, that any one would 
insult his honor by offering a temptation to treason. 



LOGAN FIRED UPON AND WOUNDED. 93^ 

Colonel Logan led his scouts often through the country, in the vicinity of 
St. Asaph's, to avoid assassinations from ambush or surprise attacks. On 
one of these excursions the next year, following Indian signs, he discovered 
a camp of red men at Big Flat Lick, about two miles from the fort. Return- 
ing, he led an armed party out, and attacked the savages with so much vigor 
that they fled through the woods, without making much resistance. This 
lick was a noted resort for game, and often frequented by hunters, both white 
and red. 

Not long after the above incident, Logan, again in its vicinity, was fired 
upon by a lurking band of Indians. His right arm was broken and a light 
breast wound inflicted by this fire. The savages rushed on him, to finish the 
bloody work by taking his life and scalp, and so narrow was the escape that 
one of them in the lead managed to seize his horse by the tail, which, sniff- 
ing the danger, leaped forward and bore his rider gallantly back to the fort. 
The chieftain was for a time disabled, but his vigorous manhood and simple 
pioneer habits soon healed his wounds, and permitted him to go to the front 
again, in all the adventures and perils of the life around him. 

Physically and mentally, Logan Avas great. No emergency ever overtasked 
the man's varied powers. Indeed, no occasion ever occurred in his eventful 
life to measure the possibilities of the reserve force within. With the au- 
thority and mien of a patriarch, his characteristics were those of unassumed 
simplicity and sincerity, and all confided in him for wise counsel and help- 
ful trust. He was an order of man who would have, anywhere and in any 
sphere, been recognized as a leader among his fellows. 

On April 19th, John Todd and Richard Callaway were elected burgesses, 
Dr members of the Legislature of Virginia, for Kentucky county, the first 
election held in the country, and on May 23d they set off for Richmond. 

In April, Ben Linn and Samuel Moore were selected and sent off" as 
spies to Illinois, doubtless in furtherance of deep designs which the fertile 
md sagacious mind of Colonel Clark had already conceived, and which 
ivere matured for development the next year, as we shall hereafter see. 

They embarked in a canoe, or pirogue, down the Cumberland river to 
Its mouth, from whence they penetrated the country in question, and contin- 
ued their adventures for information until their return, on the 2 2d of June. 

The first court ever held under the new government was convened at 
Harrodstown, on the 2d day of September, and at this time a census of the 
population of this town was taken by Captain John Cowan, and preserved 
in his book of memoranda for that date, with result as follows: men, 85; 
women, 24; children, 70; slaves, 19 — total, 198. 

In spite of Indian harassments, the^ settlers managed to gather some 
harvest fruits of their toils, especially under protection of their rifles in the 
vicinity of the fort walls. About the middle of July, four acres of wheat 
were reaped, with an antiquated sickle, from a patch of ground just west 
of Harrodstown, the first known to be harvested in Kentucky. 



94 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In the latter days of July, a party of forty-five men reached Boonesbor- 
ough from North Carolina, a few days in advance of the arrival of Colonel 
Bowman's troops at I^ogan's fort. These re-enforcers disheartened the sav- 
age bands that swayed the country since the first days of spring, and their 
early retreat across the Ohio gave great relief to the pent-up and beleagured 
foresters, which they were not slow to enjoy. They had by this time thor- 
oughly learned the tactics and cunning methods of the red men, and in the 
active school of experience the ready pupils had already learned to equal, 
if not to excel, their foes in all the strategies and arts of the woodsman, the 
hunter, and the warrior. Hitherto, the Indians were accustomed to call 
the Virginians Long Knife — from the frequent use of the sword in more 
regular warfare. Now, the whites felt themselves the better marksmen, as 
able to track and see an Indian as to be tracked and seen by him, and just 
as likely to get the first shot, which was usually the end of contest. The 
Indians knew the whites to be close shooters in the woods or from the forts, 
and their severe losses in their siege attempts made them more than ever 
shy of exposing themselves within rifle range. 



w 



A PARTY SETS OUT TO MAKE SALT. 



95 



CHAPTEE XII. 

(1778.) 



Boone, with thirty men, goes to Blue 
Licks to make salt for the garrisons. 

Boone captured by the Indians while 
hunting. 

Negotiations for the surrender of his 
men, and their safety as prisoners. 

Carried to Chillicothe. 

Thence to Detroit and back. 

Boone adopted into an Indian family. 

A great favorite with the savages. 

Boone startled to find an army of war- 
riors prepared to march on Boonesbor- 
ough. 

Escapes to give the garrison warning. 

His perilous trip of five days on one 
meal. 

Puts the fort in order for defense. 

With a scout of nineteen men, crosses 
the Ohio in search of Indians. 

Returns, and finds the fort besieged by 
Duquesne, of Canada. 

Intrigues for a surrender fail. 

Attack and repulse. 

Failure. 

Retreat of Indians. 

McAfee's account. 

Court-martial acquits Boone. 

Clark's spies report from Illinois. 

He visits Virginia. 

Commissioned by Governor Patrick Hen- 
ry for an expedition to Kaskaskia. 



Recruits over two hundred and fifty men. 

Descends the Ohio and camps on and 
fortifies Corn island, at the falls. 

Thence to Fort Massacre, fifty miles 
from the Mississippi, with one hundre' 
and fifty men. 

Marches across the country to attack 
Kaskaskia. 

Captures it and the British garrison. 

The French population warmly greet 
the Americans. 

Diplomacy and strategy. 

Captures Cahokia. 

Clark's dangerous dilemma. 

Organizes civil government. 

Must capture Vincennes, or be captured. 

Gibault, the priest, offers to take it for 
him, without fighting. 

The French citizens readily agree to 
pull down the British and run up the 
American flag in the absence of the gar- 
rison. 

Appoints a commandant at each of the 
three captured forts. 

Sends British commandant a prisoner to 
Virginia. 

The Virginia Legislature creates Illinois 
county. 

Colonel John Todd appointed civil com- 
mandant. 

Captain Helm appointed for Vincennes. 



What seemed a most calamitous blow to the settlers, and especially to 
Boonesborough, at the opening of the year 1778 may, behind the first out- 
ward appearances, have been one of those favors in disguise which we can 
only attribute to an ever-guarding Providence, and which was but a method 
of saving the community from a greater calamity. On the ist day of Jan- 
uary, Boone set out with a party of thirty men to make salt for the year's 
supply for the three stations, at Blue Licks — an article then greatly needed. 
On the 7th of February, while hunting some miles away, to supply the salt- 



g6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

makers with meat, he was intercepted by a body of one hundred Indians. ^ 
Boone attempted escape. It proved that the enemy, then on a march to 
attack Boonesborough, were needing a captive white to give them informa- 
tion. Instead of shooting at him as he ran, the swift-footed warriors gave 
chase, and captured the veteran. The experience and cunning wit of Boone 
were now put to the severest test. How to baffle and divert the Indians 
from their intended march upon Boonesborough, and at the same time 
save from massacre the party at the salt springs, was the aim of his endeavor. 
They were doubtless apprised of the visiting party at Blue Licks, who had 
been in camp there a month. We regret that Boone kept no journal of these 
interesting episodes of his charmed life. He was held eight days by his 
captors before they made a move on the whites. The narrative will show 
throughout that along with his immovable fortitude and self-command, Boone 
also possessed the gift or dissembled art of winning address, with a magnetic 
sympathy that seemed at a glance to unnerve the hand of violence and to 
win the confiding trust of even those who had ever been his implacable foes. 
With all, he was a common favorite. We can only infer that Boone was 
parleying with his captors with a double object — to save his party from being 
attacked from ambush and slaughtered, and to prevent an after attack on 
Boonesborough, now almost emptied of its garrison. It was winter, and 
Indians were not yet expected in force. It was easy to surprise in both 
attacks. 

Boone won the Indians over to a pledge that if the salt-makers would 
surrender without resistance, they should be well treated and cared for as 
prisoners, and their lives spared. By capitulation, the terms were carried 
out, and Boone and twenty-seven men were led away, disarmed, and at the 
mercy of the savages, across the Ohio to the Indian town of Chillicothe, on 
the Miami. 

Before the capitulation and surrender were consummated, three of the 
party adroitly managed to escape to the brush and safely get out of reach of 
the Indians. After the latter left with the prisoners, they returned to the 
salt springs, concealed the kettles, and brought home the salt made. One 
of these, William Craddlebaugh, lived long in the family of Boone, at the 
fort, and subsequently became a noted pioneer of Madison county. 

By what art the wily backwoodsman dissuaded them from the march 
on Boonesborough we are left mainly to conjecture. Marshall comments on 
this incident: " Had the Indians, after making Boone and his men prisoners, 
instead of returning home with their captives, marched on to Boonesborough, 
they might either have taken the place by surprise, or, using the influence 
their prisoners conferred on them, compelled a surrender of the garrison, 
and progressively acting on the same plan, it is probable that the two other 
forts would have fallen in the same way and from the same advantage. It is 
hardly presumable that even if they had escaped surprise, they would have 

I Hartley's Boone, pp. 128-133; Boone's Narrative; Collins, Vol. II., p. 59; Marshall, pp. 55-58. 



THE INDIANS REFUSE A RANSOM FOR BOONE, 97 

resisted a summons to surrender, which might have been enforced by the 
massacre of the prisoners under their eyes." 

Of the twenty-seven prisoners with Boone, Stephen Hancock made his 
escape and returned to Boonesborough with the inteUigence of the capture 
and the condition of the prisoners. He was afterward the founder of Han- 
cock's station, in Madison county, about six miles north of Richmond, and 
became one among the best known of the pioneers and Indian fighters of 
the country. 

In March following. Captain Boone and ten of his men were conducted 
by a guard of forty Indians to Detroit, then garrisoned by the British. Gov- 
ernor Hamilton was commandant, and to him the men were presented, and 
by him treated with much civility and humanity. The governor, whether 
from motives of conciliation toward Kentuckians, or from a partiality con- 
ceived for the veteran pioneer, offered the savages one hundred pounds to 
ransom him from captivity, assuring Boone that his purpose was to liberate 
him on parole. But such was the affection of the Indians for Boone, for 
whom they had conceived the most unbounded admiration, on account of 
his wonderful skill as woodsman and hunter, that they would consider no 
terms of ransom with even a degree of patience. Boone was both vexed 
and embarrassed. He had found it a necessary part of his policy to express 
pleasure in the companionship of these rude men of the forest, and with 
their wild forest ways, and this had led them to believe that the old pioneer 
was entirely contented to remain among them. He dared not now excite 
their jealousy or suspicion. Several English gentlemen, sensibly affected by 
his situation, generously offered to supply him with money, or any other 
thing necessary to his comfort, but, with thanks for their friendly offers, he 
declined to receive where it would never be in his power to repay. 

Intelligence was broken to Boone at length that he must prepare to return 
•to Chillicothe with his adhesive companions, and to separate from the ten 
comrade captives, who would be left prisoners at Detroit. In fifteen days 
after, he arrived at Chillicothe, and was soon after adopted into one of the 
principal families as a son, thus increasing the confidence and affection of 
his new relatives. To all this, Boone was wise enough to accommodate 
himself, and accept what he could not help, with good grace. 

iThe forms of this ceremony of adoption were in keeping with the nat- 
ures and peculiarities of the savages, and as severe as they were ludicrous. 
The hairs of the head and the beard were plucked out by a painful and tedi- 
ous operation, one by one, excepting a tuft some three or four inches in 
diameter on the crown, for the scalp-lock, which was tied and dressed up 
with trinkets and feathers. The candidate was then taken into the river in 
a state of nudity, and there thoroughly washed and rubbed, as averred, "to 
take all his white blood out." This ablution, as well as the previous proc- 
esses of the Indian toilet, was usually performed by females. Then the 

I Peck's Life of Boone ; Hartley's Boone, p. 131. 

7 



98 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

subject for initiation was taken to the council-house, where the chief, in a 
stately harangue, expatiated upon the distinguished honors conferred. His 
head and face were then painted in the most frightful and fanciful style, and 
the ceremony completed with a grand feast and smoking. 

They soon challenged him to a shooting-match, in which he found it more 
difficult to avoid their jealousy and envy at his superior skill, than to beat 
them at an exercise in which they prided themselves as invincible. They 
invited him to join them on hunting parties, and applauded him greatly for I 
his dexterity in hunting and killing game. He became quite a favorite with 
the leading chief of the Shawanee tribe, while Boone conciliated and increased 
the royal confidence and favor toward himself by frequently bestowing on I 
him the spoils of the hunt, and otherwise manifesting his respect and loyalty. * ^ 

It may seem incredulous that such tokens of friendship and confidence 
could pass between those whom we, but a little while ago, saw engaged in 
implacable strife. But instances were not rare of white persons falling in 
with the Indian tribes as prisoners, traders, or adventurers, and being adopted 
and identified with them for years or for life. Indeed, the life of the back- 
woodsman derived its charm from that freedom from restraint which charac- 
terized the Indian traits, and the love of restless and varying adventure that 
goes with both. Once accustomed to it, with no strong ties to bind to civil- 
ized and conventional society, many preferred to continue it rather than give 
it up. The Indians had good reasons to hope that one like Boone, whose 
predilections were all for the life of the forest, would soon be weaned from 
his white associations, and by preference cast his lot with the red men as one 
of them. As for the old hunter, the ties at Boonesborough and among his 
own kind were never stronger; only, with silent stoicism, he wreathed his 
honest, rugged features in the smiles of apparent content, and allowed his 
new kindred and companions to nurse their illusions. There was method in 
this acting, and Boone but patiently bided his time, which was coming. It 
was most common to provide one, adopted into a family and tribe, with a 
squaw to kindle his fires, to do his cooking and other odds and ends of 
domestic life, and to while away the oppressive hours of leisure; but that 
Boone was ever won so far to Indian customs by the unwashed and uncombed 
blandishments of Indian beauty, history has been, and will ever be, obscurely 
silent. He was then over fifty years of age. 

The relaxed vigilance now allowed gave the captive opportunities of 
escape, yet with some risk. It was never absent from his purpose. Early 
in June, a party of the Indians set out for the Scioto Salt Lick, and Boone 
was their companion. After the salt making was over, they returned. On 
reaching ChilUcothe, Boone was startled to find over four hundred warriors 
painted and armed, with all the frightful demonstrations of warlike intent, 
ready to march against Boonesborough. For once his captivity seemed to 
serve a purpose, and he determined to convey the information which had 
come to him, in time to warn his natural kindred and friends. It was the 



A PARTY MARCHES ON PAINTCREEKTOWN. 



99 



1 6th of June, nearly six months since he had parted from wife and home, 
that he rose at the usual hour of the morning and went out, apparently to 
hunt, but really to set out for Boonesborough. Marshall says : 

' ' So great was his anxiety that he made lio attempt to kill anything to 
eat. The journey of one hundred and sixty miles was performed in five 
days, upon a single meal of victuals which he had concealed in his blanket. " 
Arriving at Boonesborough on the 20th, he found the fortress in a bad 
state of defense; but the intelligence which he brought, and the activity 
which he inspired, soon produced the necessary repairs. No sooner did the 
garrison feel itself secure, than it began to wait with impatience the recep- 
tion of intelligence from the enemy. After the lapse of a few days, one of 
the other prisoners, escaping from them, arrived with information that the 
Indians had, on account of Boone's elopement, postponed their march for 
three weeks. 

In the meantime, however, it was discovered that they had their spies in 
the country, watching the movements of the different garrisons ; and what- 
ever might be their reports, it was consoling to reflect that the forts had 
been strengthened and the garrisons increased in numbers since the last 
attack. This was particularly the case at Boonesborough. The enemy still 
delaying their meditated attack on this place, Captain Boone, with a com- 
pany of nineteen men, one of whom was the brave Kenton, left the fort on 
the I St of August, with a view to surprise Paintcreektown, on the Scioto. 

In the party on this adventure were also Captain John Holder, the 
founder of Holder's station, shortly distant from Boonesborough, and the 
noted leader of the Boonesborough company of militia, which played such 
an important part in the earlier history of this settlement; and Captain John 
Kennedy, Colonel John Logan, John Callaway, and others afterward distin- 
guished as among the leading men of Madison county. 

Within a few miles of the objective town, Kenton, being in the advance, 
was startled by hearing loud peals of laughter from a cane-brake just before 
him. He scarcely had time to tree, before two Indians mounted on a pony, 
one facing the animal's tail and the other his head, totally unsuspicious of 
danger, and very hilarious, came in view. He fired, and both Indians fell, 
one killed and the other severely wounded. He hastened to scalp him, and 
was suddenly surrounded by about thirty Indians. Dodging from tree to 
tree, he was in danger momentarily of losing his life, when Boone and his 
party, opportunely appearing, briskly attacked and put to flight the savages. 

The captain then dispatched two spies for intelligence, who, returning 
from the town, reported that it was evacuated. Upon the receipt of this 
information, Boone marched for Boonesborough with all practicable dis- 
patch, in order that he might gain the van of the enemy's army, place his 
booty in a state of security, give timely warning to the garrison, and pre- 
pare for the approaching storm. On the sixth day he passed the Indian 
main force, and on the seventh arrived in safety at Boonesborough. The 



lOO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

eighth, the Indians, commanded by Captain Duquesne, eleven other Cana- 
dian Frenchmen, and some of their own chiefs, invested the place, over four 
hundred strong, with British colors flying at their headquarters. This was 
the most formidable force ever arrayed against Boonesborough, and such 
as, upon comparison, was calculated to fill the garrison with alarm. But the 
equanimity of Boone's temper was little affected by it, when he received a 
summons in the name of his Britannic majesty to "surrender the fort," Two 
days' consideration was requested and granted. This was an awful moment. 
The little garrison was summoned to council. Not fifty men appeared. To 
those who were assembled, the case was briefly stated. On the one side, 
a manly defense, with the chances of success, or if vanquished, of being 
devoted to destruction with savage barbarity; on the other side, a surrender 
upon articles was offered, of becoming prisoners and stripped of their effects. 
The deliberation was short, the answer prompt and unanimous: "We are 
determined to defend our fort as long as a man of us lives." It was also 
resolved for the time to keep the result secret. The meeting then dispersed, 
and each man went to collect his cattle and horses as he could, that they 
might be secured within the walls. Being prepared for the conflict as well 
as they expected, and the two days having expired. Captain Boone, from one 
of the bastions of the fort, announced to the listening commander of the 
adverse host the determination of the garrison, to which he subjoined his 
own personal thanks for the notice of their intended attack and the time 
allowed him for preparing his defense. Evident disappointment was seen 
depicted on the countenance of Duquesne. He did not, however, immedi- 
ately abandon the idea of capitulation, but determined to play it off as a 
decoy for Boone. Accordingly, he declared that it was his order from Gov- 
ernor Hamilton to take the garrison captives, to treat them as prisoners of 
war, and not to rob, much less destroy, them. If nine of the principal per- 
sons in the garrison would come out and treat with them, he would do no 
violence, but return home with the prisoners, or liberate them if they would 
swear allegiance to and accept the protection of his Britannic majesty. 

"This," said Boone, "sounded grateful in our ears, at least as a further 
respite, and we agreed to treat." Yet, as it will soon appear, with very 
different intentions, and not without cause to suspect Indian honor. The 
commandants, with opposite views, communicated them to their respective 
followers — the one fair, the other fraudulent. The parties now prepared for 
treaty, the conferences were opened within sixty yards of the fort gate. The 
articles, being few, were soon digested and signed in the presence of many 
Indians, who, though silent, stood restlessly around, with the appearance of 
solicitude. This was the moment for crowning the stratagem with success. 
Boone and his companions were told by the leaders of the adverse side that 
among Indians it was customary, on such occasions, to evince the sincerity 
of their intentions by two Indians shaking each white man by the hand. 
This was also assented to, and immediately two Indians approached each of 



UNDERMINING THE FORT. lOI 

the nine white men, and sought to take his hand and instantly grapple him, 
with intent to drag him off a prisoner. On this occasion the defensive 
instinct required not the aid of deliberation, but each man by an instan- 
taneous effort extricated himself and sought his safety in the fort. The 
Indians, recovering from, the surprise consequent on their disappointment, 
■discharged a heavy fire on the fugitives, who all escaped unhurt except one 
wounded. Having failed in this stratagem, the enemy commenced the pre- 
meditated fire upon the fort, which was kept up with little intermission for 
nine days, and which was briskly returned by the garrison, directed by 
Boone. In the meantime, the besiegers began to undermine the fort, stand- 
ing on the bank, about sixty yards from the margin of the river. This new 
mode of attack in Indian warfare may, without doubt, be ascribed to the 
Frenchmen who were with them. The mine alluded to was begun in the 
bank of the river, above the water, and came to be discovered by the contrast 
of the waters below with those above the fort, indicating the solution of 
new earth. The fact once ascertained, the object could not be mistaken, 
and, to counteract it, a deep trench was ordered to be opened inside of the 
fort, and as the earth was taken up it was thrown over the fort wall. By these 
means the enemy were apprised that their design was detected and would be 
•defeated, whence they desisted from their mining project. Being now con- 
vinced that they could not conquer the place by either force or fraud, and 
their stock 6f provisions being nearly exhausted, they, on the 20th of August, 
raised the siege and abandoned the object of their grand expedition, and 
with it the last hopes of the campaign. During this siege, the most formid- 
able that had ever taken place in Kentucky, from the number of Indians, 
the skill of the commanders, the fierce countenances, and savage disposition 
of the warriors, made even more dreadful by art than by nature, the effect 
of which was augmented tenfold by the yell and the war-whoop, there were 
only two men killed and four wounded in the fort. On the part of the sav- 
ages there were thirty-seven killed in sight of the walls and many wounded, 
who were immediately removed. 

From an unpublished manuscript of General Robert B. McAfee we have 
"been permitted to copy another account of this siege of Boonesborough and 
the romantic incidents attending it. This relation will have a peculiar inter- 
est, as the facts are derived from those whom General McAfee knew to be 
present at the siege: 

"Accordingly, as expected, on Monday morning, August 8th, by sunrise, 
about four hundred and forty-four Indians appeared on the hill facing the 
fort, commanded by Captain Duquesne, a Frenchman. They paraded with 
colors flying, in two lines, so as to show their whole strength and terrify the 
fort into submission. The Indians were at particular pains to appear in as 
frightful a manner as possible, as they had all painted themselves in various 
colors, streaked with red. After showing themselves for some time, they set 
up a most hideous yell and brandished their guns. Only twenty-nine men 



I02 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

were in the station, who, though fine soldiers, felt a chill of horror at the sight 
of an enemy so numerous and so powerful. Soon after, a large negro man 
who could speak English stepped about forty yards in front of the Indian line 
toward the fort, and called three times as loudly as he could for ' Captain 
Boone ! ' to which no answer was given. He then returned and called again 
and said he ' wanted to see Captain Boone, and if he would come out they 
would not hurt him.' The men in the fort held counsel upon the proposition, 
a number opposing his going out. He put an end to the debate by deter- 
mining to go; prepared himself with a pipe and flag, and went out alone, 
leaving directions that if they saw the Indians imprison him they should 
shut the fort and defend it to the utmost. For a sign to his men he would 
strike his flag if danger presented itself. After a conference of an hour he 
returned safely into the fort, and related to his men the result and their immi- 
nent danger. The Indians wished him to surrender the fort, and they would 
permit him and his connection to escape unhurt. To this proposition he 
seemed to assent, in order to amuse the Indians, well knowing that in the 
then situation of the fort they could easily take it by storm. Boone, pre- 
tending to accede to their terms, promised to return next day and inform 
them the result of the conference, saying he had no doubt the fort would be 
given up. 

"During the night the men spent their time in fortifying the place, by 
fastening the gate with bars; but for which the Indians might easily have 
forced the gate. Next day Boone returned to the Indian camp, and informed 
them that all his men but a few were wiUing to surrender, and he believed 
they would soon assent, seeing they had no means of escape; but that if 
they did not give up, he himself would provide for its surrender. He left 
them, promising to return next day, first agreeing to have a feast then, at 
which the Indian chiefs were to be present and most of the principal men 
of the fort. The time thus gained was diligently improved in the fort by 
making every preparation possible. Things were made ready for the feast, 
in a hollow in sight of the fort, whither both parties were to repair. Ac- 
cordingly, Boone and five or six of his men went out. 

"After eating, the Indians began the conference for a surrender, which 
Boone seemed to agree to; but either suspecting his sincerity, or desirous 
of drawing the men out of the fort, in order to massacre them as soon as 
the conference was over, it was proposed and agreed that two Indians should 
shake hands with one man. They accordingly rose up, and one Indian took 
hold of the hand on one side, and another on the other side. The first that 
got hold, being impatient, tried to throw Boone down. But the whites, sus- 
pecting all things were not right, broke their hold, threw down some of the 
Indians, and ran toward the fort, while they were fired upon by a party of 
Indians in ambuscade, who killed one white man and wounded two others. 
The balance of the whites got safely into the fort, having considerable diffi- 
culty to run through the Indians in several places, they having planted 



RAISING OF THE SIEGE. 



103 



themselves all around, and as soon as the first gun fired, come pouring in 
from all directions with the most hideous yells. Of the two wounded men, 
one was supposed to be killed; but he laid still until dark, and then made 
out to crawl to the gate and get in. The Indians kept up a constant fire 
until night, firing sometimes after dark. Next morning, they began again, 
using every plan to capture the place. The whites kept up a steady and 
well-directed fire, proving unusually fatal. 

"When the Indians found they could not take the fort by storm, they 
secreted a chosen band under the bank of the Kentucky river, and then 
appeared and made battle in great numbers on the opposite side; then 
affected to retreat, in great disorder, so as to induce the whites to follow. 
The latter, suspecting the ruse, kept close to the fort; for Boone, in all his 
conferences with the Indians, represented the number of his men five times 
greater than he really had. When the Indians found their affected retreat 
would not do, they all returned, and attempted to undermine the houses by 
beginning under the bank of the river and digging toward the fort. In this 
they had not the success they expected; for a drizzling rain set in, which 
lasted for two or three days. They mined to within fifteen or twenty steps 
of the houses, to where a large log lay, behind which they endeavored to 
hide. The men in the station frequently killed Indians as they came to, 
and returned from, the mine. After all, the Indians would have captured 
the fort, but for the constant rain for several days. The Indians took 
advantage of the night to make their advances. One night, about the 
seventh after they came, they pitched several torches of cane and hickory 
bark against and upon the fort, which would inevitably have consumed the 
whole place had the fire caught readily; but the logs being wet, no impres- 
sion was made before it was discovered by the whites, and extinguished with 
considerable trouble. The night being extremely dark, the Indians made 
every possible exertion to reduce the fort and set it on fire. 

"They continued to undermine during the next day, but finding they 
were discovered and countermined, they gave over, and next day paraded 
and withdrew, having already slain all the cattle they could find and de- 
stroyed all the property they could reach. They retreated leisurely, the 
whites being too weak to pursue. 

"After the siege was raised, the people picked up near the fort walls one 
hundred and twenty-five pounds of leaden bullets which had fallen, besides 
those which stuck in the logs and palisades. This seems to have been the 
last effort ever made by the Indians against Boonesborough, It exhibits a 
striking instance of the imbecility of physical force, destitute of knowledge 
and the arts. For what military enterprise could have been easier, to men 
only knowing how to make ladders, than scaling a wall of stockades twelve 
feet high, or mounting on cabin roofs, not even so high, when their num- 
bers were six times greater than those within; and when, as the case was, 
the assailants were armed with similar weapons, and especially with the 



I04 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tomahawk in their hands, and, face to face, a most formidable weapon? 
That no attempt was made to take the place by storm, or escalade, seems 
the more astonishing, on considering that the commander, Duquesne, must 
have possessed some of the arts of civilized warfare, and was apparently 
desirous of conquest. Was it that he had not the requisite tools and artifi- 
cers ; or was he unwilling that his host of myrmidons should be let loose 
among the helpless women and children, that he did not point out to them 
the certain road to victory, and to an indiscriminate massacre as the conse- 
quence? History could gain but little, while humanity might lose much, 
by a solution of this inquiry. 

"During Boone's captivity among the Shawanees, his family, supposing 
he had been killed, had left the station and returned to their relatives and 
friends in North Carolina; and as early in the autumn as he could leave, the 
brave and hardy warrior started to move them out again to Kentucky. He 
returned to the settlement with them early the next season, and set a good 
example to his companions by industriously cultivating his farm, and volun- 
teering his assistance, whenever it seemed needed, to the many immigrants 
who were now pouring into the country, and erecting new stations in the 
neighborhood of Boonesborough. 

"As some adverse criticisms had been made on the surrender of the 
salt-making party by Boone, by an agreed arrangement, and with Boone's 
approval, a court-martial was called for an investigation of charges exhibited 
by Colonels Richard Callaway and Benjamin Logan. The result was an 
honorable acquittal, and the increase of Boone in the esteem and affections 
of the people." 

Allusion was made in the previous chapter to the action of Colonel Clark 
in sending spies into Illinois, and the return of these in early autumn. They 
reported great activity upon the part of the military, as well as constant 
encouragement to the Indians in their barbarous depredations upon the 
Kentucky frontier. Though the English used every art of misrepresenta- 
tion to prejudice the old French residents against the Virginians, by telling 
them that the frontier people were as barbarous and cruel as the Indians 
themselves, yet there were strong traces of dislike to English rule, and of 
affection for the Americans with many. The information gained by Colonel 
George Rogers Clark, with his sagacious and comprehensive mind, discov- 
ered to him very plainly that the British posts of Niagara, Detroit, Vincennes, 
Kaskaskia, and the supporting stations on the Wabash and the Mississippi, 
formed an offensive salient line reaching from Canada, southwestwardly, 
almost to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and commanding 
the extremest western frontiers of the colonies as low down as the southern 
boundary of Virginia. Taking in all at a glance, it was evident that these 
irruptions and devastations by the Indians had their source in this salient 
line of British outposts. These must be captured, and this insidious left 
arm of British power broken, before there could be any immunity from the 



CLARK S PLANS OF CAMPAIGN APPROVED. I05 

heartrending barbarities which were being continuously practiced. If these 
•could be successfully assaulted and taken, it would also establish a counter 
influence to deter and overawe the savages in future. 

With matured views Colonel Clark set out for Virginia in October 
previous. He says: "At this time every eye was turned toward me, as if 
■expecting some stroke in their favor. Some doubted my return, thinking I 
would join the army in Virginia. I left them with reluctance, promising 
them I would certainly return to their assistance, which I had determined to 
•do." It was just after the victory of Saratoga when he reached Williams- 
burg, and the Virginians were participating in the general rejoicing. Early 
in December, Clark opened the plan of a north-west campaign against the 
British forts to Governor Patrick Henry, who was at first captivated with the 
brilliancy of the scheme and the vastness of the results, if successful ; yet on 
more serious consideration a detachment on so distant a service appeared 
hazardous and daring to an alarming degree, especially as the secrecy neces- 
sary to such an expedition forbade the communication of the plan to the 
Legislature. 

Governor Henry invited several gentlemen of high character to private 
conferences, who questioned Colonel Clark minutely as to his plans of march 
and assault, and particularly about his views as to a refuge of retreat in case 
of failure. Clark answered readily as to the march and attack. As for the 
refuge, he stated that, if compelled, he intended to retreat to the Spanish 
possessions on the west side of the Mississippi. The result was a full appro- 
bation of the scheme, and the worthy sons of Virginia present — among them 
George Wythe, George Mason, and Thomas Jefferson — pledged in writing, 
in the same presence, to exert their influence to obtain from the Legislature 
a bounty of three hundred acres of land for every man in the expedition. 
All was now hastened, and on the 2d of January Clark received two orders — 
an open one to proceed to Kentucky, and a private one to attack the British 
at Kaskaskia. Twelve hundred pounds were advanced the commander to 
meet the wants of the little army, with orders suitable on the Virginia officer 
at Fort Pitt for ammunition, boats, and other needed equipments. Major 
William B. Smith was despatched to the Holston settlement to recruit, and 
Captains Leonard Helm, Joseph Bowman, and William Harrod in other quar- 
ters. It was desired that the forces should be raised west of the Blue Ridge, 
so as not to weaken the Atlantic side. 

The spring of 1778 was far advanced before the recruits were enlisted 
and equipped and all ready for the little fleet of flats and pirogues to descend 
the Ohio. The departure was with three companies of troops and a consid- 
erable number of families and private adventurers. Dropping down to the 
mouth of the Kentucky river, Clark thought of fortifying a post there; but 
his destination being so far west, he abandoned it for a more desirable posi- 
tion at the falls, where he could better prepare his craft at leisure for the 

I Clark's Memoirs ; Butler, p 46; Collins, Vol. IL, p. 135. 



I06 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

descent of the rapids. Reaching the latter place, Colonel Clark landed his 
forces on Corn Island, May 27, 1778, and, after fortifying the place, com- 
menced drilling his raw troops. The driUing continued until the 26th of 
June, when the expedition was ready. Re-enforced from interior Kentucky 
by Bowman's volunteers and others, on the eve of departure he disclosed to 
his men for the first time his intention to lead them against the British forts 
in the north-west. On the next day, in the midst of a total eclipse of the 
sun, variously prognosticated by the men, the little, frail fleet passed down 
the falls with but four companies, in command, respectively, of Captains 
Joseph Montgomery, Leonard Helm, Joseph Bowman, and William Harrod, 
and consisting in all of one hundred and thirty-five fighting men. 

A number of families and persons who had come down with the troops 
were left at the post on Corn Island, to abide the result of what might have 
seemed to many this Quixotic adventure. It was a fortunate incident that 
Clark learned of the French alliance treaty from Colonel John Campbell, of 
Fort Pitt, which proved of the utmost importance in its bearing on subse- 
quent events. Drifting down the Ohio to some fifty miles or more above 
its mouth, the command disembarked at a point near Fort Massacre, or 
Massac, nearly opposite the mouth of Tennessee river, an abandoned place 
constructed some years before by the French to control the navigation of the 
Ohio. Here they intercepted and held a party of hunters, led by John Duff, 
who, though originally from the colonial settlements, had recently come from 
Kaskaskia, and who communicated the important intelligence that this fort 
was commanded by M. Rocheblave, that the militia were kept in good order, 
that spies were stationed on the Mississippi, and that all Indians and hunters 
were instructed to keep a sharp lookout for the rebel Virginians, as the Ken- 
tuckians were called. It was learned that the fort was not regularly garri- 
soned, as no danger of attack was anticipated, and the parade of the militia 
troops was more a show than for serious defense, though a good stock of 
arms and munitions was within and ready always for use. This party very 
readily consented to guide the command of Clark to Kaskaskia, and volun- 
teered the opinion that if they could surprise the place it could be captured. 

Concealing the boats at the point of disembarkation, they plunged into 
the forests and across the prairies for the point of destination. John San- 
ders, the principal guide, got bewildered and seemed to have forgotten the 
features of the country. This excited suspicion, and he was told that any 
treachery on his part would be visited with death. He solicited to go with 
a guard over a large prairie and to further try and recover the route. This 
was granted, and, fortunately for both sides, the familiar signs of the route 
were discovered and confidence restored. The march resumed, the com- 
mand halted on the evening of July 4th within a few miles of the town, and 
lay until dark, when it was continued to the suburbs. A house was taken 
possession of some three-quarters of a mile above the town. All was quiet, 
and no cause of alarm given. A sufficient number of boats was soon pro- 



CAPTURE OF KASKASKIA. 



107 



cured, and two divisions crossed the river with orders to repair to different 
parts of the town, while Colonel Clark with a third took possession of the 
fort, afterward called Fort Clark, on the south-east side of the river and 
opposite the town. It proved to be almost empty and unguarded, so secure 
were the authorities in the sense of the safety of their location. It was 
understood that if Clark's division met with no resistance, upon a signal 
given, the other two parties were to enter the town on either side and to 
send persons to warn the inhabitants in French that any one appearing out 
of their houses would be shot. The fort was entered by a postern gate left 
open on the river side, shown by a soldier captured the day before while 
hunting. The town of two hundred and fifty houses was surrounded, every 
avenue guarded, and all communication cut off, and in two hours the whole 
was in the hands of the invaders without the loss of one drop of blood. M. 
Rocheblave, the British commandant, was taken in his chamber, and written 
instructions seized, inciting the Indians to murder the whites, and rewarding 
them for scalps. Many other valuable papers and documents would have 
been captured with him; but his wife, presuming on the gallantry of the 
Virginians, concealed them in her t5,unk, which, with woman's tact, she 
locked and sealed with the assumed prerogative and rights of female deli- 
cacy, more effectual than iron lock and key, with the high-spirited frontiers- 
men. Not for all England's secrets and treasure could the lid of that trunk 
have been lifted in that presence. 

These credulous people were taught by the English to believe that the 
backwoodsmen were as barbarous and bloodthirsty as the Indians, and Clark 
thought it policy to take advantage of such impressions, better to overawe 
and silence all resistance through terrors. During the night the men were 
to patrol the town with a tumult of whoops and yells, after the Indian fash- 
ion, while all were suppressed in silence. However alarming, it proved an 
innocent stratagem of war. 

^ At the same hours, scouts and spies were put out to obtain intelligence. 
Little could be had, however, except that a considerable body of Indians 
lay near Cahokia, a post some sixty miles up the Mississippi. On the next 
day the troops were withdrawn to positions near and commanding the town, 
while all communication was forbidden between the citizens and soldiers. 
Even those citizens who were sent for by Clark were enjoined to be silent. 
The people were purposely left in painful suspense. Though, after the with- 
drawal of the troops, they were permitted to walk the streets freely, when 
they were seen in busy conversation, a few of the principal militia were 
arrested by order and put in irons, without any reason being assigned for the 
procedure. There was a purpose in all this yet to be disclosed; it was not 
from inhumanity, and Colonel Clark, as gentle as he was brave, says that 
he keenly felt these hardships which he thought necessity required. After 
some time, M. Gibault, the village priest, got permission to wait upon the 

I Butler, pp. 52-54 ; Clark's Memoirs. 



Io8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

commander, with a delegation of five or six citizens. As they entered the 
headquarters, they beheld, with amazement, the group of officers dressed in 
buokskin or homespun hunting-shirts and breeches, all soiled and torn with 
their rugged march, and with unshaven faces, presenting to the Frenchmen, 
so noted for their delicacy and refinement, an appearance as frightful and 
forbidding as that of savages themselves. They gazed in silence, not know- 
ing whom to address as chief. The silence was broken by a demand to 
know what was the object of their visit. They asked which was the com- 
mander. Aware that they suspected their religion was obnoxious, Clark 
carelessly mentioned that the Virginians did not interfere in religious mat- 
ters, and that they could assemble for worship as they pleased, but not to 
venture out of town. They were then dismissed without further satisfaction, 
that the suspense might continue. After an assemblage at the church, the 
deputation again waited on the commander, and thanked him for his indul- 
gence. They recognized that their situation was the fate of war, but begged 
that they might not be separated from their wives and children, and that 
some clothes and provisions might be left for their further support; their 
conduct had hitherto been influenced by those in authority, whom they could 
but obey; nor were they sure that they understood the nature of the contest 
between England and the Americans, so remote were they from the centers 
of intelligence. 

The dread and terror of the people were now wrought to as high a pitch 
as was desired, and Clark determined to change his relentless mien toward 
them, and to begin the policy of conciliation. "You must mistake us for 
savages, from your demeanor and language. Do you think that Americans 
would strip the clothing from women and children, separate them from hus- 
bands and fathers, and take the bread out of their mouths? We do not 
wage war with such atrocities. It was to prevent our own women and 
children from horrid butchery by Indians, that we have taken up arms and 
penetrated this distant stronghold of British and Indian barbarity, and not 
the contemptible prospect of plunder. I bear to you a message of surprise, 
that I hope may be pleasing to all. You have not lost your love for your 
native France, whose dominion over this territory you reluctantly exchanged 
for that of England by the treaty of Paris, in 1763. That France, which 
was your first patriotic love, and for which there must ever remain a linger- 
ing pride and affection in the breast of every Frenchman, native born and 
true, has now, by another treaty with the Americans, made herself an ally 
with us in this cruel war that England wages against us. The French king 
has now united his powerful arms with those of America, and the war, in 
all probability, will soon be terminated' in our favor. You are at liberty to 
choose whichever side you please, and we will not molest you nor inter- 
fere with your religion, for it is the religion of many Americans. I am 
convinced that you have been misled by the statements of British officers, 
and prejudiced against us; and, satisfied that we should be friends, and not 



CAHOKIA SWEARS ALLEGIANCE TO VIRGINIA. 



109 



enemies, I shall order the immediate release of your friends, and announce 
to you that all are privileged to go where and do as they please in future." 
The delegation sought to apologize for the implied imputation of barbarians, 
under belief that the property of a captured town belonged to the captors. 
Colonel Clark assured them that such was not the usage with his soldiers, 
and that private persons and property would be as sacredly respected as in 
times of peace. The reaction of feeling among the people on hearing these 
generous terms was unbounded. In a few moments the glad news spread 
over the town, and the citizens hailed their new allies and friends, as they 
now regarded them, with joyful demonstrations and ringing of bells, and 
with thanksgiving and praises to God at the church, for the unexpected 
deliverance from the horrors of captivity. 

It was soon a matter for attention to get possession of Cahokia, the strong 
outpost above. For this purpose. Major Bowman, with his company of 
mounted men and part of another, were ordered to march. A number of 
Kaskaskia gentlemen volunteered their services to go with them, as they 
claimed that the Cahokians were their relatives and friends, and they enter- 
tained no doubt of inducing them to unite in the same way with the Ameri- 
cans when the facts were explained to them. ^ The offer was very welcome, 
and gratefully accepted by Colonel Clark; and the French allies, commanded 
by their former militia officers, were nearly equal in number to Major Bow- 
man's detachment. The expedition thus re-enforced set out, and on the 6th 
day of July arrived at and invested Cahokia, before its presence was known, 
very much as at Kaskaskia, and the surprise may be imagined. The cry 
of the Big Knife being in town spread dreadful alarm among the simpler 
and helpless portion of this little community. This was soon allayed when 
the citizen soldiers of Kaskaskia went among them and made themselves 
known, and narrated the occurrences at their own town and the generosity 
of their American friends. The reactionary results were much the same 
here as at Kaskaskia, and Major Bowman took possession without opposi- 
tion. The inhabitants took the oath of allegiance to Virginia, and the future 
promised the utmost harmony. A body of Indians encamped near quickly 
dispersed from the country, when they got information of these sweeping 
successes. They readily understood that the Kentuckians were not out on 
this tour with any view to parley with them on easy terms. 

Though the brilliant success had far transcended expectations, yet Colonel 
Clark was fully aware of the delicacy of his situation. He must employ all 
the arts of which he was master to maintain the position he had won. He 
cultivated a friendly and confidential intimacy with the Spanish officers at 
St. Louis, on the opposite side of the Mississippi, that he might counteract 
the agency and extended control of the British. But the most formidable 
danger to the completion of his conquests was the post of St. Vincents, now 
Vincennes, Indiana. In the long chain of intrigue with the Indians, this 

I Butler, p. 57 ; Clark's Memoirs. 



no HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

important post formed a central and important link. It lay almost on a line 
from Kaskaskia to the Falls of Ohio, two hundred and thirty miles from 
the former, and but half as far from the latter, and menacing both. To 
garrison the two posts which he held, and spare a force sufficient to capture 
Vincennes seemed impossible. He must resort to other means as yet. He 
instructed his comrades to speak of the Falls of Ohio as headquarters of 
the army, from which the present troops were but a detachment, to be re- 
enforced as needed. The rashness of the expedition and the real weakness 
of resources must be kept in obscurity. 

Courts of civil jurisdiction were established, chosen by the people, and 
presided over by French judges, reserving an appeal to Clark. All the 
plans of government and control worked with harmony and unmolested, 
with the willing subjects co-operating. On the 23d of November, the Vir- 
ginia House of Delegates voted a resolution of thanks to Colonel Clark and 
the gallant men of his command, "for their extraordinary perseverance in 
so hazardous an enterprise, and for the important services thereby rendered 
the country." 

Clark could not rid his mind of the imperative need of an early capture 
of Post Vincennes; and with a view to maturing some feasible plan for that 
end, M. Gibault, the priest of the village of Vincennes as well as Kaskaskia, 
was consulted. This invaluable ally, who subsequently received the public 
thanks of Virginia for his distinguished services, had shown himself enthusi- 
astically attached to the American cause, readily volunteered all information 
and aid in his power. He stated that Governor Abbot, of Vincennes, had 
lately gone to Detroit, and that for the capture of the place he thought a mil- 
itary expedition scarcely necessary, as Clark contemplated. He surprised 
the latter with the grateful offer to "take the business on himself, and to 
bring that place over to the American interest without the trouble of march- 
ing a body of soldiers there." To this offer Clark most readily acceded, yet 
he could scarcely bring himself to realize that the clergyman could accom- 
plish the feat. The charge of this extraordinary enterprise was given to M. 
Gibault, though, at the request of the latter, a citizen, Dr. Lafont, was asso- 
ciated as a temporal member of the embassy, and both, accompanied by a 
veteran spy of Clark's, set off on the 14th of July for Vincennes. After full 
explanations of the state of affairs between the priest and his flock, and a 
statement of the late act of alliance on the part of the French Government, 
the inhabitants readily threw off the British authority, and in a very solemn 
manner took the oath of allegiance to Virginia. ^ A commandant was elected 
and the American flag displayed over the fort, to the amazement of the 
Indians. Thus fell into the hands and under the authority of Colonel Clark 
another and most important post, and with its fall the great salient line of 
frontier attack and defense, lying across Indiana and Illinois, was swept 
away, from the lakes to the Mississippi. The savages were told that their 

I Butler, p. 62; Clark's Memoirs. 



M. ROCHEBLAVE SENT TO VIRGINIA. Ill 

old father, the French king, was come to life again, and was mad with them 
for fighting for the English; that if they did not wish the land to be red with 
the blood of their own people, they must make peace with the Americans. 

In August, in less than three weeks, M. Gibault and party returned with 
news of the extraordinary result, no less to the astonishment of Clark than 
to his gratification. The commander was becoming much disturbed at the 
near approach of the expiration of the three months for which his soldiers 
had enlisted. Availing himself of the discretionary powers vested in a com- 
manding officer in such an emergency, he re-enlisted his men on a new foot- 
ing, and raised a company from among the native population, commanded 
by their own officers. He established a garrison at Kaskaskia, under com- 
mand of Captain Williams, and another at Cahokia under Captain Bowman. 
Captain William Linn, who had served as a volunteer to this date, took 
charge of the troops who desired to return to Kentucky, and was commis- 
sioned by Colonel Clark to establish a fort at Falls of Ohio. 

Captain John Montgomery was despatched to Richmond in charge of M. 
Rocheblave, the British commandant. An effort was made by Clark to 
restore to this implacable gentleman his slaves, which had been seized as 
public plunder, in consideration of the feelings and interests of Mrs. Roche- 
blave. He was invited, with some acquaintances, to dine with the officers, 
where it was proposed to tender this property to his possession again. But 
so violent and insulting was his language in their presence that all courtesy 
was laid aside, and the slaves sold, and the proceeds — some five hundred 
pounds — divided among the troops. He was one of those French officials 
who was found in place and authority when the French Government "ceded 
and guaranteed to Great Britain all Acadia and Canada, with their depend- 
encies, to the middle of the Mississippi, and the lakes Maurepas and Pont- 
chartrain," while Great Britain in consideration surrendered to France all 
her claim to the country west of the Mississippi. These French officers 
were retained in the employ and pay of the English, to secure their influence 
in reconciling the French population, and the Indians over whom they had 
masterly influence, to the authority and uses of the British Government. 

Governor Henry, advised of all proceedings, was requested by Colonel 
Clark to appoint a commandant to take charge of the civil affairs of this 
secluded portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia, lying one thousand 
miles west of Williamsburg, its own seat of government, behind the towering 
peaks of the Alleghany range of mountains, and beyond the picturesque 
Ohio river, that divided in two halves the expanse of territory that formed 
the colossal skeleton of embryotic empire, and which now embraces the 
eight commonwealths of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In response to Clark's suggestion, the 
House of Burgesses passed an act establishing the county of Illinois of all 
the territory within the limits of Virginia west of the Ohio river, and author- 
ized the raising of a regiment of five hundred men and the opening of 



112 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

communication with New Orleans for their support. Colonel John Todd, 
afterward slain at the fated battle of Blue Licks, received the appointment 
of civil commandant, with headquarters at Kaskaskia. Captain Leonard 
Helm was commissioned by Clark as commandant at Fort St. Vincents, and 
agent for Indian affairs in the department of the Wabash, where it was. 
expected to place a strong guard of soldiers when the expected re-enforce- 
ments from Virginia should arrive. Captain Helm was fully instructed by 
Colonel Clark, and then set out with a few companions to assume authority 
in his new jurisdiction, relying for the present on the friendly acquiescence 
of his subjects at Vincennes for the support of his government. 



CLARK AND TOBAC INTERCHANGE MESSAGES. 



113 



CHAPTER XIII. 



['779-) 



Captain Helm treats with Chief Tobac 
and others, at Vincennes. 

Other tribes renounce the English. 

Clark's policy with Indians. 

Council customs and oratory. 

The Big Knife. 

Clark's speech. 

Plot to assassinate Clark, by the Mead- 
ows. 

Marploted. 

Their treatment. 

Two young braves offer their lives in 
sacrifice. 

Honored by Clark. 

Chief Big Gate, from the lake shore, 
visits headquarters. 

A bitter enemy subdued. 

Big Gate's dramatic oratory and acting 
in council. 

Captain William Linn ordered to Falls 
of Ohio. 

Fortifies on the site of Louisville. 

Removes stores and men from Corn 
island. 

Description of a Christmas day at the 
Falls. 

Origin of the name, Louisville. 

William Poague killed near Danville, 
Kentucky. 

Great loss to the settlers. 

His good wife. 

Attack on Bowman's corn-shelling party. 

Coomes' narrow escape again. 



Lidian raids near Harrodstown. 

Captain Herndon pursues Indians in 
Scott county. 

Amusing Indian strategy. 

Kenton returns to Kentucky. 

Ventures into the Indian country in 
Ohio. 

Is captured. 

The Indians recognize a stalwart foe, 
and treat him unmercifully. 

Call him a " Hoss Steal." 

Paint him black for the stake. 

They tie him on a wild horse and turn 
him loose in the woods. 

At Chillicothe, the stake prepared. 

Runs the gauntlet eight times. 

Taken to Sandusky to be burned. 

Rescued from the stake by Simon Girty. 

Again made a prisoner. 

Chief Logan persuades a Canadian to 
ransom him. 

Delivered to the British commander at 
Detroit. 

Escapes by the aid of a woman. 

Personal description of Kenton. 

His character and heroism. 

His admiration for his fair deliverer. 

Starts for Vincennes to join Clark. 

His journey not productive of any prac- 
tical results. 

The Legislature of Virginia this year 
declares void the purchase by the Tran- 
sylvania Company. 



Near St. Vincents was a chief, named Tobac, or Son of Tobacco, and 
coiiiplimented by his countrymen with the title of Grand Door of the Wabash, 
as he was consulted upon all matters of importance respecting the Wabash 
country. Messages had been interchanged between Colonel Clark and this 
chief, through M. Gibault, and Captain Helm was instructed to use every 
exertion to conciliate him.i In an Indian council, opened at the in^ 



I Butler, p. 6s ; Clark's Memoirs. 



114 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of Captain Helm, the latter delivered to Grand Door a friendly talk from 
Colonel Clark, inviting him to unite with the Big Knife and his old father, 
the king of France. To this letter, with the usual reserve of the Indian 
character, the chief declined to give an answer until he had assembled his 
counselors, though he was glad to see one of the Big Knife chiefs. It was 
true he had fought together with the English, yet he had thought they 
always looked gloomy. In all this the chief preserved the most courtly 
dignity, in which he was imitated by Captain Helm, with feigned solem- 
nity; in accord with which it was several days before the council was con- 
cluded. 

At length Captain Helm was invited to attend a meeting of the chiefs, at 
which Tobac addressed him, as follows : 

"The sky has been very dark with the war between the Big Knife and 
the English, but now it has cleared up. The Big Knife was in the right, 
and perhaps if the English conquered them they might serve the Indians in 
the same way. He had always been a man and a warrior, and now he was 
a Big Knife, and would tell the red people no more to bloody the land for 
the English." 

With this last sentence the chief sprung to his feet and struck his hand on 
his breast. Concluding, he advanced and shook Captain Helm by the hand, 
and his example was imitated by the other chiefs, much to the gratification 
of the whites. This conduct of Tobac was soon followed by the absent 
chiefs as high up as the old Wea towns along the Wabash country — a stroke 
of success most auspicious to the future interests of the Americans. Tobac 
never after broke faith with the whites. 

These negotiations were followed by other treaties made by Colonel Clark 
with the tribes westward to the Mississippi, in September. He had always 
thought that the policy of inviting the Indians to treat, and of cajoling them 
with presents, was a very questionable one, and his recent observations of 
the manner of dealing with them by the Spanish and French fully confirmed 
his views. The Indian barbarian measured every act with the eye of sus- 
picion, and received it with the dissemblance of cunning art. He was ever 
on the alert for an advantage, and had a quick sense of insight into the ordi- 
nary motives of men. The only method to outwit him was for the educated 
white man to dissemble so deeply and obscurely, that the intuition of the 
barbarian would be inadequate to fathom the mystery of the motives beyond 
the surface of words and actions. And, after all, is not this the condition 
of success in the science of diplomacy between the higher courts of the civ- 
ilized world, as well as in the rude council chambers of the barbarous tribes 
in the other extreme? It is the same fallible human nature observed, whether 
we interpret its expressions behind the elegantly-phrased and refined manner- 
isms of a Talleyrand, or read through the thinner disguises of an untutored 
Tobac. We may confide in and respect the one just as we do the other, 
for all such diplomacy has been conducted mainly to the best advantage for 



THE INDIANS RENOUNCE THE ENGLISH. 



'15 



the time, to be altered at convenience. Sometimes these rude savages 
observed with unshaken fidelity, for lifetime, the terms of these treaties. 

Colonel Clark let the Indians understand that he recognized a state of 
Avar yet existing between them and the whites, and that he was ready to 
wage hostilities or to make peace, as they desired. For himself, he had no 
terms to offer; that he expected their decision at an early day. Until then, 
he wished no communication between them and the whites. The Indians 
soon called a council of chiefs, to which they invited Clark and his officers. 
As the account of these Indian negotiations is so characteristic and so 
descriptive of events which reflect the history of all the peoples concerned 
at this crisis of time, we deem it of interest to give it in full, as vividly 
described by Butler : 

"The various parties were assembled, white and red, and the chief who 
was to open the council, as the Indians were the solicitors, advanced to the 
table where Colonel Clark was sitting, with the belt of peace in his hand, 
another with the sacred pipe, and a third with fire to kindle it. After the 
pipe was lighted it was presented toward the heavens and then toward the 
earth, and, completing a circle, was presented to all the spirits, invoking 
them to witness all that was done. It was then presented to Colonel Clark, 
and afterward to all present in turn. Then the orator chief addressed his 
people as follows : 

" 'Warriors! be thankful that the Great Spirit has taken pity on you, has 
cleared the sky and opened your eyes and ears, so that you may hear truth. 
We have been deceived by bad birds flying through the land (the British 
emissaries), but we will take up the hatchet no more against the Big Knife, 
and we hope, as the Great Spirit is good, and has brought us together for 
good, so may we be received as friends, and peace may take the place of the 
bloody belt.' 

"The speaker then threw into the middle of the room the bloody belt of 
wampum, and flags received from the British, and stamped upon them in 
token of their rejection. To this address, Clark, with guarded and distant 
manner, replied : 

" 'I have paid attention to what has been said, and to-morrow will give 
an answer to it, when I hope the hearts of all people will be ready to receive 
the truth; but I recommend all to keep prepared for the result of this coun- 
cil, upon which your very existence as nations depends. I desire that you 
do not permit any of our people to shake hands with you, as peace is not 
yet made. It is time enough to give the hand when the heart can be given 
also.' 

'■One of the chiefs answered: 'Such sentiments are like men who have 
but one heart and do not speak with a forked tongue. ' 

"On the following day all again assembled, and Clark delivered the fol- 
lowing address, as we take it from his own Memoirs : 

"'Men and warriors! you said yesterday that the Great Spirit had 



Il6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

brought us together, and you hoped it was for good, as He was good. So- 
do I, and expect that each party will adhere to whatever is agreed on, wheth- 
er it be peace or war. I am a man and a warrior, not a councilor. I am 
sent by the Great Council of the Big Knife and their friends to take posses- 
sion of all the towns in this country held by the English, and to watch the 
motions of the red people ; to bloody the paths of those who attempt to stop- 
the course of the river, and to clear the roads, that the women and children 
may walk in them without striking their feet against anything. I am ordered^ 
to call on the Great Fire for warriors enough to darken the land, that the red 
people may hear no sound but of birds who live on blood. The Big Knife- 
is much like the red people; they don't know how to make blankets and 
powder and cloth; they buy these from the English, from whom they are- 
sprung. They live by making corn, hunting, and trade, as the red men and. 
the French do. The English said we should buy everything from them, 
and since we got saucy we should give two bucks for a blanket, which we 
used to get for one; that we should do as they pleased, and killed some of 
our people to make the rest fear them. This is the cause of the war between 
them and us. In this way it began, and the English were driven from one 
place to another until they got weak, and then they hired you red people to 
fight for them. The Great Spirit got angry at this, and caused your old 
father, the French king, to join the Big Knife and fight with them against 
all their enemies. So the English have become as the deer in the woods, 
and you may see that it is the Great Spirit that has caused your waters to be- 
troubled, because you fought for the people he was mad with. If your 
women and children now cry, blame yourselves for it, and not the Big Knife. 
Now, judge who is in the right. I have told you who I am. Here is a, 
bloody belt and a white one; take which you please. Be like men, and 
don't let your being surrounded by the Big Knife cause you to take up the 
one belt with your hands, while your hearts take up the other. We will, 
therefore, part this evening; and when the Great Spirit shall bring us together 
again, let us speak and think like men with but one heart and one tongue.' 

"The next day after this speech, a new fire was kindled with more than 
usual ceremony, and the Indian speaker stepped forward and said: 

"'We ought to be thankful that the Great Spirit has taken pity, and 
opened our ears and hearts. I paid great attention to what the Great Spirit 
put into the heart of the Big Knife chief to say to us. We believe the 
whole to be the truth, as the Big Knife did not speak like any other people 
we have heard. We have been deceived, and the English have told us lies, 
just as some of our old men always told us. The English have forts in our 
country; and if they get strong enough, they will serve the red people as 
they have treated the Big Knife. We will now call in our warriors, and 
throw the tomahawk into the river, where it can never be found. We will 
suffer no more bad birds to fly through the land disquieting the women and 
children.' 



ATIEMPT TO ASSASSINATE COLONEL CLARK. II7 

"The pipe was again lighted, and presented to all the spirits as witnesses 
of the transactions ; it was smoked, and the council concluded by a shaking 
■of hands all around, white and red. In like manner, with very little variety, 
treaties were negotiated with many tribes; and with a dignity and importance 
in their eyes, little inferior to that of the alliance between the United States 
and France. 

' ' Colonel Clark determined not to appear to humor or caress them, and 
even apologized for making a few presents, on the ground that they had 
traveled a long way to attend the council, and expended their ammunition 
and worn out their leggings and moccasins. The Indians were thoroughly 
overawed by the sweeping successes, and this state of mind was confirmed 
by the report of spies whom Clark kept among these newly-made friends. 
Such a sudden and extensive change among the Indians is to be largely 
attributed to the influence of the French traders and agents ; yet it required 
all the tact to preserve the prestige and authority won, with the meager 
forces of the commander. The idea of re-enforcements to order, at military 
headquarters at Falls of Ohio, was constantly kept before the public mind. 
No fees were exacted in the weekly courts, which were occupied with the 
"business and disputes of the people, under cover of which the provincial 
-officials of the English were accustomed to practice the same extortions, 
such as irritated and provoked to rebellion the citizens of the American 
colonies. A friendly correspondence was cultivated with the neighboring 
representatives of the Spanish Government across the Mississippi. 

"The incidents of the day were not without their episodes of romance. 
A band of savages, called Meadow Indians, and made up of straggling 
adventurers and desperadoes from various tribes — a species of Indian guer- 
rillas — had followed the tribes in, and been promised a large reward if they 
would assassinate Colonel Clark. For this purpose they had pitched their 
camp about one hundred yards from the fort, where the commander had 
his quarters, and on the same side of Cahokia river. This stream was but 
a few feet deep at this time, and a plot was formed for these Indians to 
cross over at night, fire their guns in the direction of Indians on the other 
side, and fly back to Colonel Clark's quarters; and there seek admission 
on pretense of fleeing from their enemies, and massacre Clark and the little 
garrison around him. At one o'clock the commander was still awake, and 
occupied with the multiplied cares of office, when the attempt was made. 
The Indians discharging their guns, so as to throw suspicion on the other 
Indians, came running to the American camp for protection, as they said, 
from their enemies, who had attacked them. The guard, in greater force 
than was anticipated, presented their arms and checked the fugitives, and 
compelled them to return to their own camp. The whole town and garrison 
were now aroused, and the Meadows, whom the guard had recognized by 
the light of the moon, were sent for. On questioning, they declared it was 
their enemies who had fired upon them from across the stream, and they 



Il8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

had sought shelter with the Americans. Some of the French, knowing this 
party better than the Kentuckians, called for a light, and discovered their 
moccasins and leggmgs to be quite wet and muddy, from the passage of the 
creek and return. The discovery convicted them of treachery and lying; 
and, to manifest to the tribes the friendly union and confidence with the 
French, Clark turned them over to the latter, to be dealt with as they 
thought fit. It was privately intimated, however, that the chiefs of the con- 
spiracy should be put in the guard-house, in irons; and this was promptly 
done. In this manacled condition they were brought daily into the council^ 
but not permitted to speak until all other business was transacted. After a 
few days. Colonel Clark ordered their irons to be taken off, and addressed 
them before the assembly, as follows : 

" 'Every one says that you ought to die for your treacherous attempt to 
kill me, and at a time when the sacred deliberations of a council were in 
progress ; and I had determined to put you to death, as you know you have 
justly forfeited your lives. But, on considering how mean it is to watch a 
bear and catch him asleep, we have come to the conclusion that you are 
not warriors, but old women, and too mean to be killed by the Big Knife. 
But as squaws ought to be punished for putting on breech-cloths like men^ 
these shall be taken from you; and as women don't know how to hunt, 
plenty of provisions shall be given you for your journey home; during your 
stay here, you shall be treated like squaws.' 

"Turning indifferently away, Clark began to converse with others pres- 
ent, while the Meadows seemed to be deeply agitated. One of the chiefs 
arose, and offering a pipe and belt of peace, attempted to speak. Clark, 
refusing to hear it interpreted, with a stroke of his sword lying on the table 
broke the pipe in pieces, indignantly announcing that the Big Knife never 
treated with women. Some friendly chiefs now undertook to mediate for 
the pardon of the offenders, especially for the sake of their families, toward 
whom the Big Knife might have pity; but Clark seemed yet inexorable. 

"The guilty culprits seemed wrought up to the intensest excitement, as 
the tomahawk seemed to be suspended over their devoted heads. They 
busied themselves in private whisperings among themselves for awhile, whea 
suddenly two of their young men advanced to the middle of the floor, 
sat down, and flung their blankets over their heads, to the astonishment of 
the entire assembly. Two chiefs now arose, and standing by the side of the 
two young men, offered their lives in sacrifice, as an atonement by which to 
appease the offended Big Knife, and again offered the pipe. Clark softened 
to a milder tone, but would not accept the pipe. The young men kept their 
positions, while the assembly was all suspense and anxiety. Deeply affected 
by the magnanimity of these young men, Clark ordered the young men to 
arise and uncover themselves, and spoke to them these words : 

" 'I am rejoiced to find that there are men in all nations. Your offering 
of your lives is at least a proof for your own countrymen. Such characters 



BIG GATE CONCILIATED BY CLARK. I I9 

as yours are alone fit to be chiefs, and with such I Hke to treat. Through 
you the Big Knife grants peace to your people, and I now take you by the 
hand as the chiefs of your tribes.' 

"They were now, with radiant countenances, introduced to the Ameri- 
can officers, to the French and Spanish gentlemen present, and finally to the 
other friendly Indian chiefs, and saluted by all as chiefs of the Meadows. 
Clark at once caused a council to be held, with great ceremony, in which 
the terms of peace were settled with these dangerous neighbors, and pres- 
ents granted to distribute among their friends. It was learned after that 
these young men were held in high esteem by the tribes, and that the inci- 
dent gave much prestige to the Virginians. 

"Next, directing attention to some of the leading tribes toward the shores 
of lakes Michigan and Erie, Colonel Clark succeeded in inducing their chiefs 
to visit his headquarters, and in negotiating terms with them. He endeav- 
ored to impress on them the idea that the English were weak and afraid, as 
they were always ready to give the Indians so many goods to fight for them. 
He spoke contemptuously both of people who would offer bribes to others 
to go to war and do their fighting, and of those who would accept such 
bribes. 'The Big Knife,' said he, 'looked upon the scalps of warriors fight- 
ing their own battles as the greatest trophies of war; but those of men 
fighting for hire were given to children to play with, or flung to dogs.' The 
language had a powerful effect, for Clark had acquired a wonderful ascend- 
ancy over the barbarians. 

"Among the chiefs of the lake -shore tribes was Lages, known by the 
appellation of Big Gate, from the circumstance of his having, when a boy, 
during the French war, and when the great Pontiac was besieging Detroit, 
shot a British soldier standing inside the fort gate. He had fallen in with a 
party of Piankeshaws coming to Kaskaskia, and had attended the council 
in silence for several days. Knowing his influence, and desiring to concil- 
iate in that quarter, the commander addressed him with an apology for not 
noticing him until the public business was dispatched ; that though they were 
enemies, it was his custom to treat all warriors in proportion to their exploits 
in war, and on this account the great warrior must, to-day, dine with him. 
Taken by sudden surprise, the chief declined; but Clark, following up his 
advantage, was all the more urgent, as he saw that Lages was embarrassed 
and persisting in refusal, and pressing his solicitations the embarrassment 
became painful. The Indian, worked into a high degree of excitement, 
stepped into the middle of the room, and in the most serio-comic manner, 
threw down his emblematic war belt, then a little British flag which he 
pulled out of his bosom, and finally tore off, with more energy than grace, 
all his clothes, except his breech-clout, and piled them in common with the 
war emblems. Then in mock heroic attitude, he struck his breast, and 
delivered himself of the following impromptu : ^ 

I Butler, pp. 77-79; Clark's Memoirs. 



I20 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

" 'You know I haYC been a \varrior from my youth, and that I delight 
in battle ; three times I have been against the Big Knife. I had been pre- 
paring for another war party when I heard of the big chief's arrival; but I 
determined to rest myself, and come and hear what the Americans had to 
say in their defense. I am satisfied the Big Knife is in the right; and as 
a man and a warrior I ought not to fight any longer in a bad cause. I am 
henceforth a Big Knife.' 

"With this he shook hands with Colonel Clark and his officers, and 
saluted them as brothers. The drollery of the matter was the nudity of 
Big Gate, and the newly-converted brother must be clothed. A fine laced 
suit was soon forthcoming, and the chief, in full military costume of dress 
parade, was ready for dinner with the Big Knife, or war against his old 
allies, the English. Soon after. Big Gate asked a private interview with 
Clark, and detailed a full account of the condition of Detroit, and offered 
his services to procure a British prisoner or a scalp. He was assured that 
no objection was made to a prisoner, if he would treat him humanely; but 
the scalp was declined, as this method of warfare was unworthy of warriors. 
On departing, Clark gave him a captain's commission and a medal, to secure 
his good will and offices in the future.'' 

We made mention of the fact that, on the re enlistment and re-organiza- 
tion of his soldiers at Kaskaskia. Captain William Linn was put in charge of 
those whom desire and necessity led to return to Kentucky, with instructions 
from Colonel Clark to enlarge and strengthen at Falls of Ohio the works 
already erected there. Corn island, the spot selected for safety and con- 
venience, was then a beautiful and verdant island, covered with forests of 
native growth, and lying directly in front of the site of Louisville, from a 
point opposite the foot of Fifth street to the foot of Fourteenth. But a 
remnant of this alluvial ground remains, just above the bridge, after the 
denuding of the forest growth, and the washings of the flood currents of 
a century. On this island, a guard of soldiers and the families who had 
come with Clark's flotilla were yet remaining under the protection of the 
stockade fort, and under the shelter of the eight rude cabins that were hastily 
built in the early summer. 

1 Inspired with more confidence by the military achievements in the 
North-west, Captain Linn constructed a stockade fort and some cabin im- 
provements on the shore, and removed the stores of supply, the garrison,M 
and the thirteen families that came out with Clark, to their new quarters. 
This new fort was on the ri\er bank, at the foot of the present Twelfth 
street. mi 

As a life-drawn and vivid picture of the events and times here, we quote^ 
an article from the pen of one of the best living authorities : - 

"One hundred and five years ago Christmas was for the first time cele- 
brated at the Falls of the Ohio. When General Clark, in the spring of 17 78, 

I Collins, Vol. 1., p. I). J Colonel R. T. Durrett, in the Bivotmc, January, 1SS4. 



FIRST CHRISTMAS AT THE FALLS. 12 f 

set out upon his expedition against the British garrisons in the lUinois terri- 
tory, some twenty famihes assembling at Redstone, for the purpose of emi- 
grating to Kentucky, accompanied the soldiers from that place to the falls. 
These families were landed on Corn island, May 27, 1778, and became the 
founders of the city of Louisville. Cabins were erected for their habitation 
on the island, and they dwelt there until the news came of the conquest of 
the Illinois country, and orders were received from the victorious commander 
to prepare for moving to the main shore. 

'•To secure the settlers against the attacks of hostile Indians on the main 
land, a fort was ordered to be erected on the high bank where Twelfth street 
now enters the river. The building of this fort was committed to the charge 
of Richard Chenoweth; and although the structure he erected had little 
claim to the name of fort, consisting, as it did, of rows of log cabins joined 
together around an inner court, it yet served the purposes for which it was 
intended, until a better one could be constructed. The settlers who had 
been cooped up on Corn island ever since their arrival were glad of the 
opportunity of enlarging their range : and although the fort was not finished 
at the close of 1778, it was in habitable condition, and some of the families 
spent their first Christmas in the new quarters. Accepting the change of 
getting from the island to the main land, and pleased with the thought of the 
approaching holiday, which all had been wont to celebrate in the old homes 
from which they came, they decided to give their new quarters what they 
called, a house warming on Christmas day. And as Chenoweth had been 
the builder of the new fort, it was concluded to honor him with the conduct 
of the house warming, or giving of the Christmas dinner and dance. 

••According to the custom of the times, two things — a feast and a dance — 
were necessary to the proposed celebration of Christmas. It was easy enough 
to have the feast. Game was abundant in the woods, and expert marksmen 
were present to kill all the deer, and bears, and turkeys, and rabbits, and 
opossums that could be needed. The ditliculty was the music for the dance. 
There was a negro named Cato at the fort who had a fiddle that had furnished 
music for the settlement during the summer and fall. But his crazy old 
instrument was now reduced to one string, and Cato was not Ole Bull enough 
to saw music from it. He had tried to make strings of the hair of the horse's 
tail and of the sinews of the deer, but the former only gave a horrid screech 
when the bow scraped them, and the latter uttered no sound except a kind 
of hoarse moan like the melancholy hoots of a night owl. Every young 
heart, and old one, too, in the settlement was sad at this condition of Cato's 
fiddle, but there appeared to be no help for it, and all had sorrowfully resolved 
to make the most of the feast without the dance. 

'*0n Christmas eve, when the hunters had returned from the woods and 
the men were preparing the game and the women picking the fowls for the 
morrow's feast, a small boat was rowed between the island and the main 
land, and made fast to a tree just opposite to the new fort. The boat was 



122 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

occupied by some traders on their way from Fort Pitt to Kaskaskia, and 
among them was a Frenchman, who, hearing of the help his king had deter- 
mined to give the Americans in their struggle for independence, had left 
France for the purpose of making his fortune in the new world with his vio- 
lin. The boat was in a leaky condition, and had been compelled to come 
to shore for repairs. Although anxiety to see the strangers had brought all 
the men, women, and children of the settlement to the boat, none of those 
who wanted so much to dance had thought of inquiring whether there was 
a fiddle or even fiddle strings on board. Not so with Cato. So soon as he 
got the opportunity he made diligent search, and learned that a French musi- 
cian was on board, and that he not only had his fiddle with him, but had 
also an extra supply of strings. It was not long before Cato had bargained 
with the Frenchman for the three strings he needed, and given as many rac- 
coon skins therefor, with an extra skin, on condition that nothing was to be 
said about it. Cato's scheme was to get his fiddle in order without any one 
at the fort knowing it, so that when the dinner was over and all were dying 
for a dance, he could surprise all with the much desired music. He, there- 
fore, put the new strings on his fiddle, laid the instrument away, and waited 
for the time when his unexpected music was to make the boys and girls 
think him the greatest man in the world. 

"Friday, the 25th of December, 1778, came with a bright sun and a 
genial winter's air. Early that morning the pots were boiling and the ovens 
were baking the dishes that were to make the dinner. At the north-east cor- 
ner of the fort, adjoining the cabin of Chenoweth, and connected therewith 
by a door, was a large apartment, double the size of the rooms of the cabins, 
intended for a storehouse. Here forks were driven in the unbearded floor, 
and poles stretched through them, over which boards were laid for the dinner 
table. By twelve o'clock the table was ready for the guests. There was no 
cloth upon it, and most of its furniture was made of wood. The meats were 
served in wooden trays, the hominy in wooden bowls, and the bread upon 
wooden plates. An occasional pewter spoon and horn-handled knife and 
tin cup enlivened the scene, but there were not enough of them for all the 
guests. If every article of food on the table had formed a separate course 
as in modern times, it might have been pronounced a swell repast. There 
were venison, and bear, and rabbit, and turkey, and buffalo meat, prepared in 
different ways. There was corn bread in pone, in hoe cake, and in batter 
cake form; there was hominy boiled and fried; there were milk, and butter, 
and home-made cheese. But the great dish of the occasion was an opossum 
baked whole. It hung by its tail on a stick of wood in the center of the 
table, and every one present had a piece of it. 

' ' The occupants of the boat that had landed the day before had been 
invited to the feast. When the dinner was about over, and the boys and 
girls and old folks, too, had begun to sigh for want of the dance, the French- 
man was telling Miss Ann Tuell an anecdote in which something was said 



A FRENCH FIDDLER IN DESPAIR. 1 23 

about an accident to his fiddle. At the mention of fiddle Miss Tuell gave a 
joyous shout, which brought everybody around her. Quick as Hghtning the 
Frenchman was pressed with questions if he had a fiddle. When he answered 
in the affirmative, the fort rang with shouts of gladness. Monsieur was 
besought to get his fiddle and help to a dance. He tried to avoid it, but 
refusals were vain. The girls hugged him and kissed him and patted his 
face until he yielded. 

"While monsieur was gone to the boat for his fiddle, the table was cleared 
from the large room, and all things put in order for the dance. Those who 
did not intend to participate in the dance, or, rather, had to attend to children 
too young to engage in it, were seated on stools around the walls, and the 
space between, which was a smooth dirt floor, left clear for the dancers. 
Cato was now the sad one of the fort. He began to think the Frenchman 
would carry off the honors of the day, and that his new fiddle strings, bought 
at the cost of four raccoon skins, would not afford the joy or bring him the 
pay he had expected. But there was no help for him, and he sullenly and 
sadly waited to see what might turn up. 

"The Frenchman was familiar with the fashionable music and dances of 
his native land, but utterly ignorant of what was suited to the frontier set- 
tlements of this country. He was willing, however, to do his best for the 
enjoyment of the occasion, and the girls were delighted at the opportunity 
of learning something new and fashionable — 

"A bran new dance 
Just come from France, 
as some of them rhymingly expressed it. When he returned from the boat 
with his fiddle he found the room ready, and the dancers on the floor impa- 
tient to begin. The names of the dances he tried to introduce have not 
come down to us, but the description which has been preserved in tradition 
indicates that they were the following : 

"First he tried what was known in those days as the Branle. He arranged 
the dancers in a circle around the room with hands joined, and showed them 
how to leap in circles and keep one another in constant motion. After giv- 
ing, as he thought, sufficient instructions to insure success, he took his place 
at one side of the room, and began to play and direct the dance. But the 
dancers would not or could not follow his promptings. They got out of 
time and out of figure, too. The Frenchman was disgusted, and resolved to 
try another figure. 

"He advanced to the center, and after descanting upon the grace and 
beauty of the Minuet, arranged the parties for that dance. He showed them 
how to make a long and graceful bow, how to balance, and how to glide for- 
ward. Then taking his position at the side of the room again, he began to 
play the minuet and direct the figure. But the dancers again either could 
not or would not obey orders. Instead of gliding, they would hop across 
the floor; and when they came to bow, instead of drawing it out to a grace- 



124 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ful length, as indicated by the strain of music, they bobbed their heads up 
and down in quick succession, hke geese dodging a shower of stones. Mon- 
sieur was again disgusted, but summoned enough of the courage of despair 
to make another effort. 

"He next introduced the Favane, and explained that the principal merit 
of this dance consisted in strutting like peacocks. He instanced Margaret 
of Valois and other distinguished French ladies who had made great fame 
in this dance. When he had arranged them on the floor and showed them 
how to strut, he took his place and began the music. A scene soon followed 
that surpassed the two previous ones in ridiculousness. As the boys strutted 
by the girls, the girls laughed at them, and as the girls caught their skirts 
with their hands on each side and strutted by the boys, the boys would imi- 
tate the peculiar cry of the peacock until the whole scene was confusion 
confounded. Monsieur was disgusted beyond endurance. Although he 
spoke very fair English when at himself, he now lost the entire use of that 
tongue, and in his rage and despair rattled away in French, like an empty 
wagon over a rough pavement. He planted his back against the wall after 
the first ebullition of passion had subsided, and there stood, with his fiddle 
under his arm and his bow in his hand, a grim, pale statue of despair. 

"Just at this juncture a charcoal face, with ivory teeth between thick lips 
grinning from ear to ear, was seen entering the room. It was Cato, the negro 
fiddler, whose music had given more pleasure at the falls than all other things 
combined. In truth, it may be doubted if the families could have been kept 
together on Corn island during the summer and fall of 1778, if Cato's fiddle 
had not been there to cheer them with its stirring tunes. Cato walked up to 
the Frenchman, and, with the politeness of the Frenchman himself, asked if 
he might play while his honor rested. The Frenchman gladly accepted the 
proposition of Cato, and told him to play on. 

"Cato began an old Virginia reel, and quick as thought the males were 
ranged along one side of the room and the females on the other, each 
having selected a partner in the twinkling of an eye. Down through the 
intervening space dashed the head couple, cutting all sorts of capers, inter- 
spersed with jigs, hoe downs, shuffles, and pigeon wings, until, weary of their 
violent efforts, they took their stand at the foot of the circle. Then the 
next couple did likewise, the difference being only a little more so or a little 
less so, until the foot became the head again, and so on. No prompting was 
necessary. All understood what was to be done, and did it. Everything 
was absolute enjoyment except the thought of how long a human being in 
Cato's position might hold out to make such music. Cato did hold out till 
midnight, when all were weary enough to go to bed and rest. 

"The Frenchman slowly awoke to an appreciation of his situation, and 
while the dance was in full blast made his way .to his boat. The boat had 
reluctantly been delayed for this frolic, and, now that monsieur was aboard 
again, it was soon pushed from shore, making its way over the rapids toward 



I 



THE FIRST SETTLERS AT LOUISVILLE. 1 25 

its destination, bearing away with it the secret as to how Cato obtained his 
fiddle-strings. 

"There was no newspaper printed at the falls at that early date; but if 
there had been, its next issue would doubtless have contained the names 
of the persons at the dance, and given a description of the costumes; for, 
although the occasion presented nothing that would rank with the displays- 
of modern fashion, everything there was the best that the times and the 
locality could afford. The gentlemen appeared in buckskin hunting shirts, 
breeches, and moccasins, and the ladies in linsey gowns, with hands ungloved 
and feet covered by coarse brogans. Every man, woman, and child in the 
settlement was present, and the following ancestors of descendants yet dwell- 
ing among us may be mentioned as having joined in this first celebration 
of a Christmas holiday in Louisville : 

"Richard Chenoweth, his wife Hannah, and their four children, Mildred, 
Jane, James, and Thomas. 

"James Patten, his wife Mary, and their three daughters, Martha, Mary,, 
and Peggy. 

"John McManus, his wife Mary, and their three sons, John, George, and 
James. 

"John Tuell, his wife Mary, and their three children, Ann, Winney, and 
Jesse. 

"William Faith, his wife Elizabeth, and their son John. 

"Jacob Reager, his wife Elizabeth, and their three children, Sarah, Maria,, 
and Henry. 

"Edward Worthington was with General Clark in the Illinois campaign, 
but his wife Mary, his son Charles, and his two sisters, Ann and Elizabeth^ 
were at the falls. 

"James Graham was also with General Clark in the Illinois territory, but 
his wife, Mary, was in the fort at the falls. John Donne was also with Gen- 
eral Clark in the Illinois country, but it is believed that his wife, Mary, and 
their two sons, John and Charles, were at the falls at this time. It has also 
been claimed that Isaac Kimbly and his wife, Mary, were among the first 
settlers at the falls. 

"In addition to these, Captain Isaac Ruddle, James Sherlock, Alexander 
Mclntyre, William Foster, Samuel Finley, Neahl Doherty, and Isaac McBride 
were detailed by General Clark from the Illinois expedition and left on Corn 
island to guard the military stores there deposited, and thus became parties 
to the first setdement of Louisville. 

"Such a number of men, women, and children just released from their 
narrow limits on Corn island, and ushered into new quarters on the main 
shore, where the boundless forest, full of game, spread around them, would 
be likely to do full justice to their first Christmas dinner and dance; and 
tradition says they performed all that could have been expected of mortals at 
both eating and dancing. Their descendants, at the distance of one hundred 



126 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and five years, see many changes in the mode of celebrating Christmas, but 
nothing more hearty, abundant, and sincere." 

A larger and better fort, built by regular troops, assisted by the militia, 
in 1782, was located between the present Seventh and Eighth streets, and on 
the north side of Main, on the high water bank of the river. In honor of 
the third Republican Governor of Virginia, it was called Fort Nelson. 
Seventh street passed through the first gate opposite the headquarters of 
General Clark. When completed, it contained about one acre of ground, 
and was surrounded by a ditch eight feet deep and ten feet wide, intersected 
in the middle by a row of sharp pickets. This ditch was surmounted by a 
breastwork of log pens or enclosures, filled with the earth from the ditch, 
with pickets ten feet high planted on the top of the breastwork. Next to 
the river, pickets alone were deemed sufficient, aided by the long slope of 
the bank. In the course of time, artillery was placed in the fort, and, insig- 
nificant as it may appear to the eye of the military critic of to-day, it proved 
an important defense, and altogether adequate to the wants and purposes 
of its day. 

This was the first permanent improvement and settlement on the site of 
the commercial metropolis made by the frontier settlers. We have noted 
the fact that Captain Thomas Bullitt laid off a town site on another portion 
of Louisville, nearer the mouth of Beargrass creek, in August, 1773; but for 
years this pioneer work was not followed up with practical results toward 
the founding of a great city. 

In the summer of 1832, in excavating the cellar of John Love's business 
house on Main street, opposite the Louisville Hotel, some of the wooden 
remains of this fort were dug up. The name, Louisville, is supposed to have 
been given in honor of the unfortunate French monarch, Louis XVI., who 
had recently negotiated the treaty by which his troops became allies to the 
Americans, in the war for independence, and under an impulse of gratitude 
on the part of the hardy frontiersmen. 

In the latter half of the year 1778 the Indians made no formidable incur- 
sions into Kentucky, no doubt diverted by the extraordinary flank invasion 
of their own territory by Clark, and the successful demonstration on their 
lines of communication with their British allies. Scurring parties, however, 
from time to time reminded the settlers that they must not relax their vigi- 
lance in defense. 

In September, as a party of sixteen whites was passing from Harrodstown 
to St. Asaph's, when near the site of Danville, they were fired on by Indians 
concealed in a cane-brake. All escaped unhurt, e.vcept William Poague, who 
failed to make his appearance. He was wounded by three balls, but had 
clung to his horse until it carried him out of reach of the enemy, when he 
concealed himself in a field of cane. Next day two parties went in search 
of their lost companion, one of whom passing near and in hearing of the 
suffering man, he hailed them to come to his relief. They carried him to 



DEATH OF WILLIAM POAGUE. 1 27 

Field's "lottery cabin," a little over one mile west of Danville, and camped 
for the night. The Indians fell on their trail, and following it to the spot, 
lay in wait to attack in the morning. Fortunately, the whites discovered 
the danger, and at dawn of light sallied out, surprised them in ambush, and 
routed the reds, who left four of their slain comrades on the ground. One 
of these had possession of Poague's horse, which was retaken and presented 
to his son, Robert. The wounded man was then placed upon a horse, and 
in the supporting arms of William Maddox behind him, was borne back to 
Harrodstown, where, in the midst of sorrowing family and friends, he died 
the next day. 

The loss of this man to the community was a very serious one, apart from 
the services of a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a good soldier. He 
was remarkably ingenious, as well as industrious. In these distant wilds, 
the people were often in want and inconvenienced for the simplest articles 
of household and personal use. There were few of such articles the creative 
and ready mind and nimble fingers of William Poague could not supply on 
demand. Buckets, milk-pails, churns, and tubs, all were turned out from 
his shop; the wood stock for the first plowshare used in turning the unctuous 
soil followed, and soon after the first loom, on which flax and woolen cloths 
were woven for the homespun garments of the settlers, was constructed and 
put in successful use, by sinking posts in the ground and piercing the beams 
and braces to them. His wife, Mrs. Ann Poague, was no less a model of that 
energy and character which distinguished the pioneer women in their domes- 
tic sphere, as well as the men in the field and forest. She brought to Ken- 
tucky the first spinning-wheel, and made the first linen ever known to be 
made in the country, and from lint gathered of nettles. Widowed by the 
killing of her husband, she was again married, in 1781, to Captain Joseph 
Lindsey, who, one year after, fell in the disastrous and bloody battle of Blue 
Licks. Widowed again, some years after, she became the wife of James 
McGinty, and long esteemed for her venerable years and worth as Mrs. 
Ann McGinty. 

In " Spaulding's Sketches," the incident of an attack on a corn-shelling 
party is narrated. About thirty men were sent out from Harrodstown to 
a plantation seven miles distant, for the purpose of shelling corn for the 
supply of the fort. They were divided in pairs, and each pair assigned the 
task of filling a sack with the shelled grain. While thus engaged, they were 
fired on by a band of some forty Indians, who had managed to conceal 
themselves in an adjacent cane-brake. Seven fell, killed or wounded, at the 
fire, while eight others escaped to an opposite cane brake. ^ The remainder, 
rallied by the orders of Colonel Bowman, seized their rifles, and sheltering 
in a cabin near, and behind trees, made an effective defense. Coomes, of 
whose narrow escape at the sugar-camp we have before spoken, was so near 
to his comrade at the bag, who was among the wounded, that his face was 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 613; Spaulding's Sketches. 



125 HISTORY OF KENTLXKV. 

Stained with the spurting blood. One of the whites, mistaking him for a 
painted Indian, cocked and leveled his riiie to shoot him. Coomes observed 
the movement just in time to stay the trigger, and save his life. Colonel 
Bowman dispatched a courier to the fort for re-enforcements. The mes- 
senger sped upon his way unharmed to his destination, though through a 
rattling fire from the ambushed enemy, and by another body of Indians in 
ambush on the road he had to travel. In a few hours the anxiously-awaited 
relief came, and the baffled Indians betook themselves to flight. The dead 
were buried, the horses were loaded with the full sacks of corn, and all 
returned by nightfall to the shelter of the station. 

A body of Indians, probably the same who shot William Poague, made 
demonstrations of attack on Harrodstown during the fall. John Gist and 
a number of others sallied out to give them battle. Gist was struck by a 
bullet on the chin, just deep enough for the concussion to knock him down. 
The Indian who fired the shot ran up to scalp him, when Gist raised his 
loaded rifle and shot him dead, and made his escape into the fort. 

Two or three Indian raids were made into Scott county, in the neighbor- 
hood of Johnson's mill, and some killed and wounded on retreat and pursuit. 
They killed a white boy of the settlement on one excursion, and had three 
killed in return. A singular maneuver, illustrating at once the devotion and 
fertile cunning sometimes displayed by the savages, was made by a retreating 
party on one of these raids. In May, they stole some twenty horses from 
the same vicinity. ^ Captain Herndon, with a small party, pursued and over- 
took them in a copse of wood, where they had halted. The whites were 
just ready to fire, when the Indians perceived them, gave a loud yell, and 
darted into the woods. Herndon, in pursuit, noticed one who, remaining 
in view of the whites, continued to yell and gesticulate, to fly from one tree 
to another, and to spring wildly up and down, as if frantic. This strange 
conduct so engrossed the whites that they found no opportunity to fire until 
the other Indians were beyond danger, having secured their guns and blank- 
ets. The acting maniac, having no doubt accomplished the heroic purpose 
of saving his comrades by this remarkable sham play, suddenly dropped the 
curtain and ended the performance by as suddenly disappearing in the brush 
as he had evacuated the camp. 

The active and enterprising spirit of Simon Kenton had led him to join 
the expedition of Clark to the North-west, in which he performed invaluable 
services as scout and spy, and in which no backwoodsman was considered 
so expert and daring. After the fall of Kaskaskia, Kenton, with a small 
party, was sent to Kentucky widi dispatches, and on the way they fell in 
with a camp of Indians with horses, which they broke up, took the horses 
and sent them back to Kaskaskia, and then directed their route to Vincennes. 
Entering that place by night, they traversed its streets without being discov- 
ered, and departed after taking two horses to each man. White river being 

I Collins, Vol II . p. 703. 



CAPTURE OF SIMON KENTON. I29 

much swollen, they made a raft to transport themselves, their guns, and bag- 
gage, while the horses were made to swim across. To their dismay, a band 
of Indians appeared on the other shore just in time to catch the horses on 
the bank. Thus intercepted, they allowed the raft to float down stream 
to a landing, and concealed themselves until night; then making another 
raft, they successfully crossed, and arrived safely in Kentucky with their 
letters and documents, some of which were for the Virginia seat of govern- 
ment. 

He was in Kentucky but a short time before his restless and almost reck- 
less spirit of adventure led him to join a party to cross the Ohio and make 
reprisals for horses stolen by the Indians from the settlers. His companions 
were killed, or escaped, in a rencontre with a body of savages, while Ken- 
ton, his rifle having flashed in the face of the foe, found himself surrounded 
by an overwhelming force, and compelled to surrender. 

Yet young in years, but a veteran in experience, Kenton was well known, 
and a peculiar object of hatred and dread to the Indians. He was unlike 
Boone in this respect. He had no dissemblance, nor art of double acting 
in his nature. He was terribly combative, and knew the Indians only as 
enemies to be killed or injured at all times and in every way, so long as they 
were at war, and he had never known them in any other way than at war. 
The Indians unfortunately caught their implacable enemy with a number of 
their ponies, on his way back to Kentucky. They at once began to beat him 
with sticks and whip him with switches, all the while upbraiding him as a 
"boss steal," as though they could not have called him brother in the prac- 
tice. They might have ended his career then and there. But the prisoner 
was no ordinary catch, and they intended to bear him into the village camp 
and make a holiday of him. After they tired of beating and taunting him, 
they secured him for the night. Laying him flat upon his back, they drew 
his legs apart and lashed his feet tightly to two saplings; a pole was next laid 
across his breast, and his hands tied to each end, and his arms lashed with 
thongs to the same. His head was then stretched back, and his neck was 
tied to a stake in the ground, but not so as to choke him if he lay quiet. In 
this manner he passed the night, without the relief of a moment's slumber, 
in unrecorded reflections on the vicissitudes of hunting Indians and stealing 
their ponies. 

They soon after painted him black, and informed him that they would 
carry him to Chillicothe, where he would be burned at the stake. One day, 
to vary the monotony of torture, and as a fresh amusement for themselves, 
his captors tied him securely on an unbroken horse and turned him loose in 
the woods, to run through the bushes and among the trees. This he did, 
capering and prancing through thickets of undergrowth and amid the limbs 
of the trees, trying in vain to discharge the load. His clothes were torn 
from his body, and his flesh pierced and bruised in many places. The horse 
at last stopped the performance from sheer exhaustion, quieted down, and 

9 



130 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

joined the cavalcade.^ Kenton, no less exhausted, was borne along with 
the band until relieved. 

Arrived at Chillicothe, they prepared the stake, tied him to it, and left 
him in that condition for twenty-four hours without applying the torch. Why 
not, he could only conjecture. He was finally untied and compelled to run 
the gauntlet. At this place there were assembled some six hundred Indians 
of all ages and sexes. All were placed in two opposite rows from the coun- 
cil house, extending nearly half a mile out, armed with switches, sticks, and 
every conceivable hand weapon available. Kenton was now directed to run 
between these files, to the beat of the drum at the council house door, and 
if he could get into the council house he should escape death; but he must 
expect a blow from each Indian as he passed. He started on his hard race 
with all the will and energy of his nature, and after many blows and many 
escapes he had almost reached the coveted door of deliverance, when he was 
knocked senseless by a blow from a club in the hands of a warrior, severely 
beaten, and again taken into custody. 

In the wretched and hopeless condition into which the repeated and 
varied barbarities of the savages forced him, Kenton was beginning to feel 
that life was becoming an intolerable burden. He was marched from town 
to town, seemingly the object of exceptional malice and cruelty on the part 
of the red men. Eight times he was compelled to run the gauntlet, and on 
one occasion he became desperate enough to attempt to escape, even at the 
risk of his life. Starting down the gauntlet line, he suddenly turned and 
dashed through the ranks at a weak point, and sped on his way, the motley 
crowd in pursuit. He had almost reached the brush, which might offer him 
safe shelter, when he was met by a lot of warriors coming in on horseback, 
and compelled to surrender. 

Several different times he was condemned to be burnt at the stake, and 
the sentence was at last to be executed at Lower Sandusky, But again he 
was fated for an unexpected deliverance. Here resided Simon Girty, the 
notorious renegade white, who had caused himself to be adopted into a tribe 
and made a great leader among the Indians, just returned from an unsuc- 
cessful excursion against the frontiers of Pennsylvania. For alleged wrongs 
he was the implacable foe of his own people, toward whom he had become 
a sort of Ishmaelite with an ever ready hand of vengeance. Hearing that 
a white prisoner was in town, he sought him, and began a merciless abuse 
of words and blows. Before Girty had joined the Indians, he and Kenton 
had been spies and scouts in the same expedition against the savages, and 
were well known to each other. Recognizing him, Kenton exclaimed: 
"Why, Simon Girty, do you treat an old boyhood friend in that way? 
Don't you know me?" Girty was amazed as he identified the unfortunate 
man as a comrade of former years. His better nature prevailed, and, relent- 
ing, he raised him from the ground, offered him his hand, and j^romised to 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 447. 



KENTON CARRIED A PRISONER TO DETROIT. I3I 

intercede for his relief and final release from captivity. At Girty's request 
a council was called, the sentence of death at the stake revoked, and the 
prisoner delivered into the hands of his opportune friend. The latter took 
him to his house, washed his wounds, decently dressed him, and bestowed 
all the privileges of hospitality. The rebound from despair and torture to 
hope and comfort was most timely and grateful to Kenton, and in this con- 
dition of rest and relief he continued five days. 

Some chiefs of neighboring towns, hearing that Kenton was set free, and 
knowing the prowess of the man as an enemy, indulging the ferocity of their 
natures, violently protested against such leniency, and demanded another 
council. In this, notwithstanding the exertions of Girty, he was again made 
a prisoner, and the sentence of death at the stake renewed against him. He 
Avas marched to Lower Sandusky to have this sentence executed. 

The varying fortune which seemed to coquette with alternate smiles and 
frowns seemed again, in the fickle humor of indulgence, to beam in favor 
toward the devoted victim. The celebrated Mingo chief, Logan, whose 
Avrongs suffered at the hands of the whites had not obliterated the nobility 
of his nature, became interested in the romance of a life that seemed to be 
charmed or fated. Perhaps this interest may have been enlisted by Girty, 
determined not to be foiled. Logan prevailed on a Canadian trader, Peter 
Druyer, who was on a visit from Detroit, to purchase the prisoner from his 
Indian claimants, and succeeded in negotiating a trade on mutually-agreed 
terms with the council. He carried Kenton with him to Detroit and deliv- 
ered him to the British commander. Here he remained a prisoner, but with 
humane treatment paroled to report at nine o'clock daily. He was surprised 
to meet several old companions — Jesse Gofer, Nathaniel Bullock, and oth- 
ers—who were also prisoners, and together these passed the time in compar- 
ative comfort until about the ist of June, 1779, working for the garrison at 
half pay, or at other occupation. 

Within the circle of frequent association with the prisoners was a comely, 
sympathetic, and spirited woman, the wife of an Indian trader by the name 
of Harvey. A first acquaintance grew into friendly intimacy between Ken- 
ton and Mrs. Harvey, and finally into an active interest in his welfare. The 
veteran in war and in all the experience of frontier life was but twenty-four 
years old at this time. A companion who served with him says "he was 
fine looking, with a dignified and manly deportment, and a soft, pleasing 
voice, and was, wherever he went, a great favorite with the ladies." Another 
who knew him intimately writes this description : 

"Kenton was of fair complexion, six feet one inch in height, and, in the 
prime of life, weighed about one hundred and ninety pounds. His carriage, 
standing or walking, was very erect. He was never inclined to be corpulent, 
although of sufficient fullness to form a graceful person. He had a soft, 
tremulous voice, very pleasing to the hearer. He had laughing gray eyes, 
which appeared to fascinate the beholder. His hair was a dark auburn. He 



132 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

was a pleasant, good-humored, and obliging companion. When provoked 
to anger, or excited, as sometimes the case, the fiery glance of the eye would 
almost curdle the blood of those he came in contact with. His rage, when 
aroused, was like a tornado. In his dealings he was honest and unsuspi- 
cious. His confidence in man approached credulity, and the same man 
might cheat him twenty times ; and then, if he professed friendship, he might 
go on cheating him." 

Such was the child of the forest, untutored in the lore of science, yet 
graduate in the knowledge and arts of the life he was called to follow; with- 
out the training and drill of rehearsal or the ordering of usher, yet a mighty 
actor in the building of States and civilization upon the theater of a terri- 
torial empire; his deeds unwritten and unheralded by the pen of fame, 
yet ingenuously carving for his name an immortality out of the wilds and 
solitudes of nature. Simon Kenton was one of the cruder types of God's 
nobility, gifted with a genuine and original manhood, ordained for a mis- 
sion, and complete in the powers and symmetry which best qualified for the 
sufferings and labors of its work. With time, the testimony of history will 
illustrate the rugged virtues of his heroic life all the more brightly, because 
they stand out from a background of obscurity and of unpretentious mod- 
esty. His deeds fitted him to be the Hector of a Kentucky Ilium, who lived 
only too late in the world's age of progress to find a Homer. He was simply 
the greatest among the great of his day, in the unblazed paths and the ad- 
venturous deeds of pioneer life; and posterity will not withhold its admira- 
tion of the hero, because of the humble sphere in which he did so faithfully 
and so nobly the task that Providence assigned him. 

It was not strange, then, that a bright and appreciative woman should 
have her sympathies aroused for a man of such qualities, and to become 
keenly enlisted for his relief from the midst of misfortunes that appealed so 
strongly to womanly nature. 

At Kenton's urgent solicitation, she consented to aid himself, Gofer, and 
Bullock to escape. Once enlisted, she engaged with womanlike unselfish- 
ness in the adventure. On the 3d of June, a large body of Indians assem- 
bled at Detroit for a general carouse. They stacked their guns near the 
residence of Mrs. Harvey, who, when the savages were in their drunken 
oblivion, stole out and selected three of the guns, and concealed them in 
a patch of pea-vines in her garden. She then collected ammunition, food, 
and supplies for a journey, and hid them in the hollow of a tree some dis- 
tance out from the town; all of which she advised Kenton of in detail. She 
told him further that he would find a ladder at the back of her garden at 
midnight, by which he could climb over the pickets and get the guns. No 
time was lost, and at the hour named, Kenton entered the garden, where 
he found the faithful woipan and ally sitting by the guns, and awaiting to 
see that all plans for their departure worked safely. The gentle, brave 
woman seemed an angel in the eyes of the youthful and ardent hunter, as 



TRANSYLVANIA PURCHASE AGAIN DECLARED VOID. 1 33 

his heart throbbed with the pulsations of gratitude for the service she had 
done him; and he parted from her with emotions, the impressions of which 
-were never effaced from his memory. As for his deUverer, she took an 
.affectionate leave of him, and with many tender wishes for his safety, urged 
him to go and place himself beyond danger. Kenton never saw her after- 
Avard, but never forgot her. Years after, and in venerable age, the old 
pioneer delighted to dwell on the kindness, and expatiate on the courage 
and virtues, of his benefactress, the trader's gentle and comely wife. In his 
reveries, he often said, he had seen the angel woman a thousand times, 
•sitting in the starhght, by the guns in the garden. 

The fugitives directed their steps toward the prairies of Indiana and the 
^Wabash tributaries, and after thirty days of dangers and hardships, reached 
Louisville in July. From this point, after a short rest, Kenton shouldered 
his rifle and started for Vincennes to join Colonel Clark, now quartered 
there, and to tender his services as needed. 

It was in November of this year, 1778, that the Virginia Legislature, by 
act passed and approved, again voided the purchase by Henderson & Com- 
pany, at Wataga, for the Transylvania Company; and in compensation for 
their outlay and improvements made, granted the said company two hun- 
dred thousand acres lying at the mouth, and on both sides, of Green river, 
and now a part of Henderson county. 



^34 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

(I779-) 



Critical situation of Clark at Kaskaskia. 

The British General Hamilton recapt- 
ures Vincennes. 

Threatens Clark with eight hundred 
British and Indians. 

Delayed in this, Clark marches on Vin- 
cennes with one hundred and seventy 
men, in winter, and through the swamps 
flooded with water. 

Incredible endurance and hardships. 

Account from Bowman's memoirs. 

From Clark's memoirs. 

The amphibian soldiers reach Vincennes 
and invest it. 

Hamilton surprised, capitulates, after 
much parleying. 

The boats arrive after the surrender. 

Awaits re-enforces to march on Detroit. 

Disappointed, returns to Kaskaskia. 

The Mississippi and Ohio country, north- 
west, saved by Clark's achievements. 

Increased immigration to Kentucky. 

Miami tribes troublesome. 

Bowman's expedition. 

His failure and retreat. 

Logan covers latter. 

Gallantly drives back the enemy, with 
severe loss. 

Chaos of war over the colonies every- 
where. 



Industrial and monetary depression. 

Virginia seeks to replenish by sale of 
Kentucky lands. 

Land law passed. 

Provision for "squatters." 

Disputes over claims settled by a com- 
mission. 

Isaac Shelby's claim first presented. 

Three hundred family boats reach the 
falls in the spring of 1780. 

Corn reaches one hundred and sixty- 
five continental dollars per bushel. 

Many locate and improve at Lexington.. 

Description then. 

Bryan's station established. 

Pittman's station, near Greensburg» 
built. 

Squire Boone builds Painted Stone sta- 
tion, near Shelbyville. 

McAfees return to their old station, in 
Mercer county. 

The "hard winter" of 1779-80. 

The McCoun boy taken prisoner and 
burnt at the stake. 

Rogers and Benham attacked on the 
Ohio river. 

Nearly one hundred men slain. 

Ferocious Byrd. 

Benham's peril and suffering. 

Rescued at last. 



As the end of 1778 drew nigh, Colonel Clark was made gravely appre- 
hensive of the condition which the affairs of the North-west were threatening 
to assume. The auxiliary forces which he had expected and fondly wished 
for had not arrived. Virginia was too deeply involved in the revolution- 
ary struggle to spare re-enforcements so much needed. The colonial army 
under Washington had passed through the discouraging gloom and distress 
of Valley Forge, in the previous winter, and every soldier was needed for 
the continental army at the opening of spring. True, the alliance by treaty 
with France had given an inspiration of hope to the rebels; but the French 



THE BKIIISH RECAPTURE VINCENNES. I35 

auxiliaries had not arrived in numbers sufficient, as yet, to afford relief. 
Captain Helm was compelled to depend entirely upon the loyalty of the 
newly-converted French and Indian population to maintain his established 
authority at Vincennes, not even being supplied with a body-guard of Ken- 
tuckians. 

In this phase events drifted until January, 1779, Colonel Vigo, a wealthy 
and distinguished merchant of St. Louis, brought to Clark's headquarters at 
Kaskaskia the intelligence that Governor Hamilton had led an expedition 
from Detroit, late in December, and recaptured Vincennes, and reduced it 
to British power. The news was fully confirmed. It appeared that there 
was really but one other soldier besides the captain in the fort at the time 
of capture, by the name of Henry. When Hamilton approached with his 
forces. Captain Helm had a cannon well charged and placed in the open 
fort gate, while he stood by with a lighted match in his hand. When the 
British came in hailing distance, the American officer cried out, "Halt!" 
Hamilton stopped the movement, and demanded a surrender of the garri- 
son. "No man shall enter till I know the terms," responded Helm. "You 
shall have the honors of war," answered the English officer; and then the 
fort was surrendered, with its garrison of one captain and one private. 

The information given by Colonel Vigo was important, as developing the 
plans and resources of the English. Hamilton had brought with his British 
troops some four hundred Indian auxiliaries, and had planned to march 
on Kaskaskia after capturing Vincennes. To keep these restless allies em- 
ployed, he had detached some to harass the Kentuckians, and others to 
watch the Ohio river, as the season was now too far advanced to attempt 
the march on Clark's fortified posts on the Mississippi. The arrest of further 
military operations on the part of the British for the present was necessi- 
tated by the impassable condition of the country. The territory lying east 
of the Mississippi, and including the Wabash river and its tributaries, over 
Illinois and Indiana, was a vast prairie-land, with intervening growths of 
timber, and generally flat. The valleys of the streams draining this country, 
especially of the Wabash and its tributaries, were usually from one to five 
miles wide, and level with the banks of the rivers and creeks. At every 
unusual rainfall, these streams would fill the channels with their turbid 
waters, and overflow the valleys to the skirting banks of the table land. 
Even this level upland prairie, in the rainy seasons, was covered over with 
vast sheets of shallow waste water, for which there was not sufficient drain- 
age, rendering it most difficult and uncomfortable for the movement of 
bodies of men. These rainfalls even yet occur almost annually, and usually 
about the midwinter season, flooding the face of the country and inundating 
the lower valleys. 

At midwinter, 1779, the flood was on, and Hamilton felt himself more 
secure at Vincennes, behind the barricades of water which spread over hun- 
dreds of obstructed miles between him and his enemy, than by the walls of 



136 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

his fort. In the meantime, from this double security he was planning and 
preparing for a sweeping campaign at the opening of spring, which aimed 
at no less than the obliteration of the Kentuckians and of Virginia authority 
west of the Alleghanies. These plans were correctly outhned by Colonel 
Vigo, who showed himself to be a true and worthy friend of the Americans. 
His statements were fully confirmed by the reports of spies, and by official 
documents that afterward came under the eye of Clark. With the British 
and Indian forces at Vincennes, Hamilton was to march on and capture 
Kaskaskia. "Here, he was to be joined by two hundred Indians from 
Michillimachinac, and five hundred Cherokees, Chickasaws, and other tribes 
of the South." With these combined forces, under orders from the com- 
mander-in-chief in Canada, he was "to penetrate up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, 
sweeping Kentucky on the way; and the more effectively to do this, a battery 
of artillery, composed of light brass cannon, was to be added to the military 
arm." Colonel Vigo imparted the important and pivotal fact, upon which 
future operations might mainly revolve, that Hamilton at that time had but 
eighty regular soldiers in garrison at Vincennes, and three cannon and some 
swivels mounted for the defense of the fort. ^ 

Colonel Clark formed his resolutions with that promptitude for which he 
was ever noted. His tactics were those of aggression, not defense, when- 
ever it was possible for him to employ them thus. '"I would have bound 
myself," said Clark, "a slave for life for seven years to have had five hun- 
dred troops. I knew that if I did not take him, he would take me." Daunt- 
lessly, he determined to invade the wilderness of floods, and with what arms 
he had, and such as he could improvise, march on and besiege the British 
in their fortified position, and determine the wage of battle at the enemy's 
headquarters. 

He immediately fitted up a large Mississippi boat as a galley, mounted 
it with two four-pounders and four swivels from the fort at Kaskaskia, and 
placed it in command of Captain John Rogers, with a company of forty-five 
men, with orders to force their way up the Ohio and Wabash, if possible, 
and station themselves at the mouth of White river, and suffer nothing to 
pass until further orders. Next, through the ardor of the French, he raised 
two companies from among the citizens of Kaskaskia and Cahokia; one in 
command of Captain McCarty, and the other of Captain Francoise Charle- 
ville. These, added to the Kentuckians, made the expeditionary force one 
hundred and seventy men. On the 7th of February, nine days after the 
receipt of the information brought by Colonel Vigo, this forlorn hope began 
its march over the drowned prairies and across the inundated valleys and 
swollen rivers. 

To divert his men from the dreariness and fatigues of such a march. Col- 
onel Clark used many devices. He encouraged parties in hunting and in 
invitations successively to feasts of game, with war dances at night after the 

1 Collins, Vol. II., p. 138. Butler, pp. 79-81 ; Clark's Memoirs. 



EXTRACT FROM MAJOR BOWMAN S DIARY. I37 

Indian manner, and other amusements. In this way they reached the Little 
Wabash on the 13th with comparatively not very serious obstruction. At 
this point the forks of the stream were three miles and the opposite banks 
iive miles apart, the interval flooded with water from three to four feet deep. 
From a graphic description, by Mr. Bodley, of the remainder of this march, 
and its issues and results, copiously illustrated with quotations from the pre- 
served memoirs of Captain Bowman and Colonel Clark, we deem it of interest 
to our narrative to quote here : 

"This aggressive march across the flooded flats of Illinois was the most 
desperate recorded in history. After days of trudging through rain and 
bog, and fording small streams, and night after night, wet, cold, without 
tents, without even a dry spot to lie upon, with only a little parched corn 
and the game they could kill for food, they at last reached the immediate 
valley of the Wabash, and their expected boat was not there. Here before 
them were miles and miles of water — two rivers swollen into one — and on 
the other side an enemy who, once warned of their approach, would fall 
upon and easily destroy them. Yet they did not falter. Their young com- 
mander, himself painfully aware of their desperate plight, had through these 
days of weary marching resorted to every device which the most prolific inge- 
nuity could suggest to keep up their spirits and cheer them on. They set to 
work, felled some trees, built a couple of canoes to carry their ammunition, 
and boldly pushed on into the deep and cold rivers at midwinter. 

"One of the brave men. Major Bowman (afterward Governor of Illinois), 
left a small diary in which, from day to day, he had noted the doings of this 
little band of men. Singularly and fortunately, it was preserved through fire 
and flood, and it tells the thrilling story so simply and so well that we can not 
■do better than briefly quote from it: 

" 'February i6th. — (They had been marching nine days.) Marched 
all day through rain and water. Crossed the Fur river. Our provisions 
began to be very short. 

" 'February ijtJi. — Marched early; crossed several very deep runs; sent 
our commissary with three men to cross the Embarrass river, if possible, and 
steal some canoes to ferry us across the Wabash. Traveled till eight o'clock 
at night in mud and water, but find no place to encamp on. Still keep 
marching on. Found it impossible to cross the Embarrass river. We found 
the water falling from a small spot of ground, and stayed there the remainder 
of the night. Drizzly and dark weather. 

" 'February i8th. — At daybreak heard Governor Hamilton's morning 
gun. Set off and marched down the Embarrass river. At two o'clock 
came to the bank of the Wabash. Made rafts for four men to cross and go 
up to the town and steal boats, but they spent the day and night in the water 
to no purpose, for there was not one foot of dry land to be found. 

" 'February igth. — Colonel Clark sent two men in the canoe down to 
meet the galley, with orders to come on day and night, that being our last 



138 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

hope, and we starving. Many of the men much cast down. No provision 
of any sort now two days. Hard fortune. 

" ^February 20th. — Camp very quiet, but hungry. Some almost in de- 
spair. One of our men killed a deer, which was brought into camp very 
acceptably — one deer for one hundred and seventy men. 

" ^February 21st. — At break of day began to ferry our men over the 
Wabash in two canoes to a small hill. The whole army being over, we 
thought to get to town that night; so plunged into the water, sometimes to 
the neck, for more than three miles, when we stopped on another hill, there 
being no dry land on any side for many leagues. Our pilots say we can not 
get along; that it is impossible. The whole army being over, we encamped. 
Rain all this day. No provisions. 

" ^February 22d. — Colonel Clark encourages his men, which gave them 
great spirits. Marched on in the waters. Those that were weak and fam- 
ished went in the canoes. We came to some sugar camps, where we stayed 
all night. Heard the evening and morning guns from the fort. No provis- 
ions yet. Lord, help us ! 

" ^February 2jd. — Set off to cross the plain, about four miles long, all 
covered with water breast high. Here we expected that some of our brave 
men must certainly perish, having froze in the night and so long fasting. 
Having no other resource but wading this plain, or, rather, lake of waters, 
we plunged into it with courage. Colonel Clark being first. In the midst of 
this wading rather than marching, a little drummer boy, who floated along 
on his drum-head, afforded much of the merriment that helped to divert the 
men from their hardships.' 

"Clark, in his own brief memoir, a masterpiece of its kind, continues 
the story : 'A canoe was sent off and returned without finding that we could 
pass. I went into the water myself; found it as deep as my neck. I 
returned. The loss of so much time to men half starved was a matter of 
consequence. I would have given now a great deal for a day's provisions, 
or even for one of our horses. I returned but slowly to our troops, giving 
myself time to think. Every eye was fixed on me. I unfortunately spoke 
in a serious manner to one of the officers. The whole were alarmed without 
knowing what I said. I viewed their confusion one minute; whispered to 
those near me to do as I did; gave the war-whoop, and marched into the 
water without a word. They gazed and fell in, one after another, without 
saying a word. I ordered those near to me to begin a favorite song; it soon 
passed through the line, and the whole went on cheerily. We reached a 
sugar camp and took up our lodging. This was the coldest night we had. 
The ice in the morning was from a half to three-quarters of an inch thick. A 
little after sunrise I lectured the whole. What I said to them I forget, but 
I concluded by informing them that passing the plain that was then in full 
view and reaching the opposite woods would put an end to their fatigue; 
that in a few hours they would have a sight of their long wished-for object;. 



Clark's ingenious device. 139 

and immediately stepped into the water without waiting for a reply. A loud 
huzza took place. A little drummer boy, the pet of the regiment, was placed 
on the shoulders of a tall man and ordered to beat for his life. I halted and 
called to Major Bowman to fall in the rear with twenty-five men, and put to 
death any man who refused to march, as we wished to have none such 
among us. The whole gave a cry of approbation, and on we went. This 
was the most trying of all the difficulties we had experienced. I judged 
from my own feelings what must be those of others. Getting into the mid- 
dle of the plain, the water about mid-deep, I found myself sensibly failing; 
and as there were no trees nor bushes for the men to support themselves 
by I feared that many of the weakest would be drowned. I ordered the 
canoes to make the land, discharge their loading, and ply backward and 
forward with all diligence to pick up the men ; and to encourage them I sent 
some of the strongest men forward, with orders, when they got to a certain 
distance, to pass the word back that the water was getting shallow, and when 
near the woods to cry out "land!" This stratagem had its desired effect. 
The men, encouraged by it, exerted themselves almost beyond their abilities, 
the weak holding by the stronger. The water never got shallower, but con- 
tinued deepening. Getting to the woods, where the men expected land, the 
water was up to my shoulders; but gaining the woods was of great conse- 
quence; all the low men and the weakly hung to the trees and floated on the 
logs untij they were taken off by the canoes. The strong and tall got ashore 
and built fires. Many would reach the shore and fall with their bodies half 
in the water, not being able to support themselves without it. The end of 
the worst had come. To our inexpressible joy, on the evening of the 23d we 
got on terra fir ma. We were in full view of the fort and town. Every man 
now feasted his eyes and forgot that he had suffered anything, saying that all 
that had passed was owing to good policy and nothing but what a man could 
bear, and that a soldier had no right to think.' 

"But still the final contest was not won, and mere fighting could not win 
it. Strategy alone could succeed against so strong an enemy, and failure 
meant torture and death. But Colonel Clark was never wanting in devices, 
and on this occasion his device was of the most audacious character. He 
made his men capture a Frenchman, and sent him with a letter to the French 
citizens, telling them that he would storm the fort that night; that they had 
the alternative of remaining quietly in their homes and receiving his friendly 
protection, or of repairing to the British fort and abiding the consequences. 
When this message was delivered he could see the whole town was in a com- 
motion — people running here and there, and many coming out to see. This 
was precisely what he desired. Some elevated ground lay between him and 
the town, and with beating drums and flying colors he marched and coun- 
termarched his men behind it in a circle, so that the townsmen could only 
see them and their banners passing at certain points, and counted each sol- 
dier a dozen times over and for a dozen men. The stratagem worked. The 



140 HISTORY OF KEXTUCKV. 

French citizens, overawed by what they supposed a large army from Virginia, 
•determined to obey the injunction of Clark's letter and remain neutral. 
Night came on; the town was entered and guarded, and the British fort vig- 
orously besieged. All that night, and nearly all of the next day, the hot 
battle went on." 

During the fire, the ammunition of the assaulting party ran alarmingly 
low. The value of the aid from the citizen allies now appeared. Colonel 
Legrass and Major Busseron had, on the approach of Hamilton, secreted a 
■quantity of powder and balls outside the fort, which were of inestimable 
worth. The newly-converted friend. Chief Tabac, came forward and offered 
his services, with one hundred warriors. The warrior re-enforcement was 
declined, though the presence and counsel of Tabac were requested. The 
siege attack continued, the Kentuckians lying within thirty yards of the fort 
walls, feeling the more secure from the elevation of the guns of the fort, and 
picking off the gunners with their rifles whenever any part of a body was 
exposed. They at last clamored to storm the fort, but Clark refused, satisfied 
of his advantage. 

In the evening, the commander sent a flag of truce, asking for three days' 
respite from assault. This Clark declined, and demanded a surrender at 
discretion. A meeting of the officers on both sides soon was arranged. 
Hamilton inquired of Clark his reasons for declining the surrender on the 
terms proposed? The reply was, "I know the principal Indian partisans 
from Detroit are in the fort, and I only want an honorable occasion of put- 
ting such instigators of Indian barbarities to death. The cries of the widows 
and orphans made by their butcheries require such blood at my hands. So 
sacred do I consider this claim upon me for punishment, that I think it next 
to divine; and I would rather lose fifty men than not to execute a vengeance 
demanded by so much innocent blood. If Governor Hamilton chooses to 
risk the destruction of his garrison for the sake of such miscreants, it is at 
his own pleasure." 

Upon this. Major Hay exclaimed: "Pray, sir, whom do you mean by 
Indian partisans?" 

Clark keenly and promptly replied: "I consider Major Hay one of the 
principal ones." 

The change in Hay's countenance was instantaneous, as though he felt 
himself convicted of this horrible crime of murder of non-combatant men, 
and of innocent women and children, with all the atrocities of savage cru- 
elty, at the instigation of the English officers and with the approval of their 
Government. The wretched man turned pale, and trembled to such a de- 
gree that he could scarcely stand, while Hamilton hung his head in confusion 
and shame for an officer who disgraced not only his countrymen, but the 
civilization which he claimed to represent. Clark relented, and said to Gov- 
ernor Hamilton that they would return to their respective posts, and inform 
him of the conclusion. 



RE-ENFORCEMENTS PROMISED. I41 

On the 24th of February, the capitulation was agreed on, and the garrison 
received as prisoners of war. The stars and stripes were hoisted over the 
fort, and a salute of artillery fired in honor of the signal and important vic- 
tory. A few days after, Captain Helm was dispatched with a troop up the 
Wabash, to intercept, on the way down, stores of value to the amount of fifty 
thousand dollars, which were captured, together with forty prisoners. On 
their return down the river, with British flags left flying, the armed galley 
from Kaskaskia hove in sight, having just arrived, and was preparing to give 
a miniature naval battle, when the enemy's ensigns were hauled down by 
Captain Helm and the American flag run up. The forces on the little war 
vessel were regretful that they were too late to share in the contests and in 
the spoils of victory. 

Colonel Clark next cast the covetous eye of conquest on Detroit, as recent 
information assured him that it was now defended by not exceeding eighty 
regular soldiers. He writes after: "Twice has this town been in my power; 
had I been able to raise only five hundred men when I first arrived in the 
country; or when I was at St. Vincent's, could I have secured my prisoners, 
and only have had three hundred good men, I should have attempted it." 
He was even meditating the hazardous move, when dispatches from Gov- 
ernor Henly, of Virginia, were received, promising a re-enforcement of 
another battalion, and it was deemed prudent to postpone. Governor Ham- 
ilton was sent a prisoner to the seat of government, in Virginia, while Clark 
was left complete master of the North-west. He soon after returned, upon 
his armed galley, to Kaskaskia, leaving Captain Helm in command of St. 
Vincent's, and in charge of all military and Indian affairs at that post. He 
went on making new treaties with the tribes, and established the American 
power so securely, from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, that it was never 
afterward shaken by the British. Well did he merit the eulogium of Mar- 
shall, that "these bold and decisive measures which, whether formed on a 
great or small scale, mark the military and enterprising genius of the man 
who plans and executes them." 

To what extent the conquest of this country of the North-west affected 
the political destiny of Kentucky, the delineation of Virginia, the autonomy 
of a future citizenship, and the territorial adjustment between Great Britain 
and the United Colonies by the treaty stipulations, at the close of the revo- 
lutionary war, November, 1782, is left for curious and ingenious conjecture. 
It is not. a violent supposition that from these mischievous, fortified posts 
there would have gathered composite armies of whites and Indians, under 
direction and equipment of the British, sufficiently strong to have carried 
out the plans of Governor Hamilton for the conquest and occupation of all 
the country from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi. One such armed expe- 
dition of five hundred men, with a small battery of light artillery, and the 
military arts of siege and assault so well known to the English, would, in 
1778, have captured every stockade fort in Kentucky, and marched with 



142 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

almost uninterrupted success to the investment of Fort Pitt, at the head of 
the Ohio river. 

To have allied and leagued all these tribes in concerted war upon the 
uncovered frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, disciplined and directed 
by the military skill of British officers, would have been as dangerous and 
disastrous as an assault upon the rear of a great army engaged at the front 
in battle. It is assuredly certain that without this North-west conquest, the 
territory north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi would have remained 
in the possession of the English at the close of the war, and, as in the case 
of Canada, England's claim to its retention would have been well nigh indis- 
putable. Her treaty at Stanwix with the Six Nations, who passed to her 
their acknowledged title of conquest to all this country west of the mount- 
ains, including Kentucky, for the consideration of ten thousand pounds, paid 
in 1768, and which was practically a confirmation of the title by the cession 
of France in the treaty of Paris in 1763, gave her as good a basis of demand 
for the retention of the North-west as she had for the retention of Canada 
and Acadia. The difference was, that she held possession of the latter; 
Clark had wrested from her the possession of the former. Otherwise, it is a 
question of doubt whether the close of the revolutionary contest would not 
have left the territory now embracing the Commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the same relation with Canada — a colo- 
nial dependence of Great Britain. 

The achievement of Clark broke the western arm of England's power, 
and the vast expanse of wilderness, instead of being subjected to the humil- 
ity and barrenness of a political dependent, became the fruitful matrix of 
empire out of which were born the sovereignties of five noble and inde- 
pendent Commonwealths. 

We can see and appreciate with the sagacious Clark that his work, though 
of vital importance, was not a complete one. The Shawanees and confed- 
erate tribes, making up the warlike Miami family, inhabiting the Miami, 
Muskingum, and Scioto valleys in Ohio, were the most persistent and 
pestilent enemies of the Kentuckians. Their convenient location, their jeal- 
ousy at the encroaches on their old and pre-empted hunting-ground, and 
their revengeful hostility to the Virginia frontiersmen whom they had so often 
met in battle, made them well nigh irrepressible. Their communications 
were with the British authorities at Detroit and Sandusky; hence the capt- 
ure of Vincennes and Kaskaskia did not much affect them. Could Clark 
have followed out his entire programme, and added to his achievements the 
conquest of Detroit and Sandusky, the Miamis and a number of tribes in 
Northern Ohio and Michigan, whom the British instigated to continued mur- 
ders and atrocities on the weak and exposed border of Pennsylvania, would 
have been subdued and kept on comparatively harmless terms. 

The intelligence of Clark's conquests and of the fortified establishment 
at Falls of Ohio gave new impetus to emigration to Kentucky, early in 1779, 



THE ATTACK ON CHILLICOTHE. 



143 



and the posts were strengthened as well as increased in number by these 
accessions. Still, the settlers were harassed continuously by the incursions 
of savages from the Ohio country, and it was determined to undertake an 
expedition to severely chastise them. 

In the spring, Colonel John Bowman, lieutenant of Kentucky county, 
notified the people to finish planting their corn and other crops, and hold 
themselves in readiness to rendezvous in May at the mouth of Licking, the 
present site of Covington. 1 Captain William Harrod, who commanded at 
the Falls of Ohio, was directed to join the expedition there with all the men 
he could raise. Captains Benjamin Logan, John Holder, and John Bulger, 
with recruits from St, Asaph's, Harrodstown, and Boonesborough, and Cap- 
tain Levi Todd, with some from Lexington and Bryan's station, were joined 
by others under Lieutenant John Haggin, from Martin's and Ruddle's. With 
Colonel Bowman chief, and Captain Logan second in command, they took 
up their line of March in May, and reached the mouth of Licking in due 
time. Here Captain Harrod joined them with a small company from the 
falls. The entire force now amounted to over two hundred. From the ren- 
dezvous they marched on to Chillicothe, which place the}- reached without 
giving the slightest alarm to the enemy. We continue the narrative from 
McClung's Sketches: 

"Here the detachment halted at an early hour in the night, and, as usual, 
sent out spies to examine the condition of the village. Before midnight 
they returned, and reported that the enemy remained unapprised of their 
being in the neighborhood, and were in the most unmilitary security. The 
army was instantly put in motion. It was determined that Logan, with one- 
half of the men, should turn to the left and march half way around the 
town, while Bowman, at the head of the remainder, should make a corre- 
sponding march to the right; that both parties should proceed in silence 
until they had met at the opposite extremity of the village, when, having 
thus completely encircled it, the attack was to commence. 

"Logan performed his part of the combined operation with perfect order 
and in profound silence; and having reached the designated spot, awaited 
with impatience the arrival of his commander. At length daylight appeared. 
Logan, still expecting the arrival of Colonel Bowman, ordered the men to 
conceal themselves in the high grass, and awaited the expected signal to 
attack. No orders, however, arrived. In the meantime, the men, in shift- 
ing about through the grass, alarmed an Indian dog, the only sentinel on 
duty. He instantly began to bay loudly, and advanced in the direction of a 
man who had attracted his attention. Presently, a solitary Indian left his 
cabin and walked cautiously toward the party, halting frequently, rising upon 
tiptoe, and gazing around him. 

"Logan's party lay close, with the hope of taking him without giving the 
alarm; but at that instant a gun was fired in an opposite quarter of the town, 

I Butler, pp. 108-9. 



144 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

as was afterward ascertained, by one of Bowman's party, and the Indian,, 
giving one shrill whoop, ran swiftly back, to the council house. Conceal- 
ment was now impossible. Logan's party instantly sprang up from the 
grass and rushed upon the village, not doubting for a moment that they would 
be gallantly supported. 

"As they advanced they perceived the Indians of all ages and of both 
sexes running to the great cabin near the center of the town, where they 
collected a full force and appeared determined upon an obstinate defense. 
Logan instantly took possession of the houses which had been deserted, and, 
rapidly advancing from cabin to cabin, at length established his detachment 
within close rifle shot of the Indian redoubt. 

"He now listened impatiently for the firing which should have been heard 
from the opposite extremity of the town, where he supposed Bowman's party 
to be; but, to his astonishment, everything remained quiet in that quarter. 
In the meantime, his own position had become critical. The Indians had 
recovered from their panic, and kept up a heavy and close fire upon the 
cabins which covered his men. He had pushed his detachment so close to 
the redoubt, that they could neither advance nor retreat without great expos- 
ure. The enemy outnumbered him, and gave indications of a disposition 
to turn both flanks of his position, and thus endanger his retreat. 

"Under these circumstances, ignorant of the condition of his commander, 
and cut off from communication with him, he formed the bold and judicious 
resolution to make a movable breastwork of the plank which formed the 
floors of the cabins, and, under cover of it, to rush upon the stronghold of 
the enemy, and carry it by main force; but before the necessary steps could 
be taken, a messenger arrived from Bowman with orders to retreat. 

"Astonished at such an order, at a time when honor and safety required 
an offensive movement on their part, Logan hastily asked if Bowman had 
been overpowered by the enemy? No. What, then, was the cause of this- 
extraordinary abandonment of a design so prosperously begun? Logan, 
however reluctant, was compelled to obey. A retreat is always a dispiriting- 
movement, and with militia is almost certain to terminate in a complete 
rout. As soon as the men were informed of the order, a most irregular and 
tumultuous scene commenced. Not being buoyed up by the mutual confi- 
dence which is the offspring of discipline, and which sustains regular soldiers 
under all circumstances, they no longer acted in concert. 

" Each man selected the time, manner, and route of his retreat for himself. 
Here a solitary Kentuckian would start up from behind a stump, and scud 
away through the grass, dodging and turning to avoid the balls which whistled 
around him. There a dozen men would run from a cabin, and scatter in 
every direction, each anxious to save himself, and none having leisure to 
attend his neighbors. The Indians, astonished at seeing men rout them- 
selves in this manner, sallied out of their redoubts and pursued the strag- 
glers, as sportsmen would cut up a flock of wild geese. They soon united 



CHIEFS BLACKFISH AND RED HAWK KILLED, I45 

themselves to Bowman's party, who, from some unaccountable panic, had 
stood stock still near the spot where Logan had left them the night before. 

"All was confusion. By great exertions on the part of Logan, well sec- 
onded by Harrod, Bulger, and the gallant Major Bedinger, of the Blue Licks, 
some degree of order was restored, and a respectable retreat commenced. 
The Indians, however, soon surrounded them on all sides, and kept up a 
hot fire, which began to grow fatal. The sounds of the rifle-shots had, how- 
ever, completely restored the men to their senses, and they readily formed 
in a large hollow square, took trees, and returned the fire with equal vivacity. 
The enemy were quickly repelled, and the troops recommenced their march. 

"But scarcely had they advanced half a mile, when the Indians reap- 
peared, and again opened fire upon the front, rear, and both flanks. Again 
a square was formed and the enemy repelled; but scarcely had the harassed 
troops recommenced their march, when the same galling fire was opened 
upon them again from every tree, bush, and stone capable of concealing an 
Indian. Matters now began to look serious. The enemy were evidently 
endeavoring to detain them until fresh Indians could come up in sufficient 
force to compel them to lay down their arms. The men began to be unsteady, 
and the panic was rapidly spreading from the colonel to the privates. At this 
crisis, Logan, Harrod, and Bedinger selected the boldest and best-mounted 
men, and dashing into the bushes on horseback, scoured the woods in every 
direction, forcing the Indians from their coverts, and cutting down as many 
as they could overtake. This unexpected aggressive move from a retreating 
foe put the enemy on a final rout. 

"In the beginning of the retreat, the noted chief, Blackfish, was killed, 
when Red Hawk, a new chief, took command. In the charge on horseback, 
he, too, was killed, when the Indians fell back in precipitate retreat. The 
loss of the whites was nine killed and several wounded. As usual, it was 
difficult to judge of the Indian losses; but the fall of the two chiefs and the 
repulse of the Indians, and their inability to pursue further, led to the belief 
that it was far in excess of that of the Kentuckians. A portion of Chillicothe 
was burned, and a considerable amount of personal property destroyed or 
brought away. Among the latter were over one hundred and sixty horses, 
which the whites managed to gather up from the town and vicinity, and bring 
off with them." 

Butler states that Colonel Bowman was informed by a negro, just before 
the time for attack, that Simon Girty, with one hundred Mingos, had been 
sent for bj^ a runner, to come to the relief of Chillicothe. General James 
Ray says that the vigorous fire of the Indians from their shelter kept Bow- 
man from giving Logan the signal. 

The whole country, from Maine to Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the 
Mississippi, was a maelstrom of war; the roar of the cannon heard, and 
the tomahawk brandished. The industrial and financial conditions were 
greatly demoralized. Paper bills had been issued and substituted for coined 



146 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

metals without a basis of redemption, and its quantity so increased that its 
depreciation was sensibly felt, and rapidly progressing. Could it even have 
been absorbed by taxation, there was nothing to supply its place as a circu- 
lating medium, without again putting the same money into circulation; nor 
could the colonies prosecute the war without the continuance of the old, or 
the issue of new, bills. 

In this emergency, Virginia began to look to the sale of Kentucky lands 
as an important source of replenishment for her overstrained treasury. This 
disposition was encouraged, in the doubts and disputes about titles, by some 
who wanted the sanction of law to support their existing claims, and by 
others to acquire a safe possession in the soil so fertile and inviting. The ' 
whole people of Virginia desired it as a relief from the growing burden of 
war-taxes, now more onerous than the impositions of the British Government 
which provoked the people to take up arms. Such are the variable calami- 
ties of war. 

^At the May session of the Legislature, the Land Law of Virginia was 
passed, by which the terms of allodial property in the soil were prescribed. 
This was an event of more than ordinary importance, and being coincident 
with the brilliant conquests of Colonel George Rogers Clark, seemed to 
open a new era in the affairs of Kentucky. In many districts of Maryland, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, the marches and conflicts of 
the contending armies of the Englisn and Continentals had made residence 
and property as insecure as it was on the distant frontiers of Kentucky under 
the dangers from Indian incursions. The new law gave the people all they 
could ask — a pure fee simple in the land already acquired or to be purchased 
hereafter. It went further, and required that no citizen should be eligible to 
a seat in the General Assembly unless he was the possessor in his own name 
and right of a. freehold estate ; and to secure the citizen in his domicile, the 
law partially exempted this freehold estate from liability of sale for debt. 
Whatever may be thought of these provisions, they were highly esteemed 
and lauded by some of the leading political economists of the day. 

Marshall says of them : "These are the great sheet anchors of the public 
policy of Virginia, and of her private morality. To these, she owes her 
stability, her consistency, and her influence, as well as her dignity and 
her prosperity. Yielding enough to democracy, which is ever to be re- 
spected when duly restrained, and never disparaged but in its excesses, she 
has wisely embraced in her constitution of government some restraints to its 
licentiousness, some checks to its violence, and some security against its 
follies." 

The emphasis of these sentiments will be better understood when viewed 
in contrast to the acquisition and tillage of the soil in the first settlement of 
Virginia. The first settlers were under direction of powerful and wealthy 
land companies, which ordered the cultivation of the soil in common, with- 

I Marshall, pp. 78-89. 



THE LAND LAW OF 1 779. I47 

out any interest on the part of the agriculturist in the soil until long after, 
and upon conditions. Under the operations of such a land monopoly, there 
was a repetition of defective crops, notwithstanding the fertility of the James 
river bottoms and the mildness and salubrity of the climate. The worn and 
wasted lands of Virginia attested the impolicy of repeating such experiments 
in the new West. In the first explorations in Kentucky, attempts were made 
by prior surveys and assumed rights of claim on the part of land monopoly 
companies to absorb the more desirable tracts, and to find a speculation in 
the colonization of these on an extended scale. 

The Ohio Company was formed previous to the rupture with England, 
under a charter from the latter Government, consisting of great personages 
on both sides of the Atlantic. It had employed a few active agents, who 
had explored and surveyed much of western Virginia and Kentucky, with 
a view of obtaining patents therefor. Christopher Gist was commissioned 
by this company "to go out westward of the great mountains' and search out 
and discover the large bodies of good and level lands on the Ohio river, as 
far down as the falls." Gist reached the Shawanee town, now Portsmouth, 
on the Ohio river, in 1751, and found about one hundred houses on the 
Ohio side and forty on the Kentucky side, the only Indian residents known 
in Kentucky by the whites. Here were found also English and French 
traders, and we learn that here Colonel George Croghen and Andrew Mon- 
tour made speeches to the Indians in council. We hear of them soon after 
marveling over the wonders of Big Bone Lick, and subsequently of their 
divers surveys. For these, the deranged state of the country and the out- 
break of the rebellion prevented the issue of patents. 

The Indiana Company was much similar, and shared a similar fate. The 
Transylvania Company followed, and would have fared no better, save the 
indemnifying grants of two hundred thousand acres each by Virginia and 
North Carolina. Many other surveys had been made on various claims, 
some of which were exceedingly mythical, and afterward came in for a share 
of the land litigation over Kentucky. 

The Land Law of 1779 set forth that — 

"Whereas, the various and vague claims to unpatented lands, previous 
to the establishment of the Commonwealth's land office, may produce tedious 
litigation, discourage the taking up of lands, and frustrate the raising of funds 
for the public debt and expenses; therefore, 

'■'■Be it efiacted, That all surveys of waste and unappropriated lands made 
prior to January i, 1778, by any county surveyor commissioned by the mas- 
ters of William and Mary College, and founded upon charter duly proved 
and certified, and upon entries made before October 26, 1763, and not 
exceeding four hundred acres, etc., shall be and are hereby declared good 
and valid ; but that all surveys of such lands made by any other person, or 
upon any other pretense whatsoever, shall be and are hereby declared null 
and void." 



148 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

But many worthy and meritorious claimants had, with honest intent tO' 
become permanent settlers, "squatted" on lands and made improvements, 
without an opportunity of survey and entry in the disturbed condition of 
affairs. For such it was enacted "that such persons as have, at their own 
charge, settled upon or settled others upon any unappropriated lands which 
no other person hath any legal right or claim to, shall be allowed, for every 
family so settled, four hundred acres or less, as the party may choose, for 
which two and one quarter dollars per hundred acres shall be paid." 

Thus was the fee simple to be completed. This was not all the privilege 
granted, however. To every person entitled to a settlement, there was, at 
his option, allowed a pre-emption of not exceeding one thousand acres ad- 
joining his settlement. For this he was to pay the State price, at the rate of 
forty dollars per hundred acres. 

1 The question of land titles having now been settled, and every influ- 
ence being auspicious, the emigration mania seemed to spread abroad among 
the people like an epidemic of fever. The autumn of 1779 was made mem- 
orable for the removal of great numbers from Virginia and the bordering 
States. Four commissioners were appointed to hear and determine all dis- 
putes relative to land claims, and to grant certificates of having settled in the 
country and of prior rights to purchase, or of pre-emption rights to those 
entitled to them. The first board for Kentucky county was composed of 
William Fleming, Edmund Lyne, James Barbour, and Stephen Trigg, all 
non-residents of the county. On the 13th of October this important land 
court was opened at St. Asaph's, in Lincoln county, and John Williams, Jr., 
appointed clerk. The commissioners afterward held court in turn at Har- 
rodstown, Falls of Ohio, Boonesborough, and Bryan's station. 

The first claim presented was that of Isaac Shelby, to a settlement and 
pre-emption about two miles south-east of Knob Lick, on the divide of the 
waters of Dick and Salt rivers, for raising a crop of corn in the country in 
1776. This perfected his title to four hundred acres, and gave him a prior 
claim to enter one thousand acres more adjacent. For the first he paid two 
and a quarter dollars per hundred acres, and for the second forty dollars per 
hundred acres. This seemed an overflow of charity and consideration for 
the hardy settlers, to sell them farms on such low terms, and, under another 
provision, on credit; but never was a measure more fruitful of dire woes 
and calamities to any people than the Land Law of Virginia proved to be to 
the Kentucky community. It was the Pandora's box in after years to lure 
the confiding to investments of fancied security, only to trick them out of 
the fruits of years of toil and sacrifice, distracting the courts and Legislatures 
with endless perplexities and doubtful interpretations. 

The tide of "movers" once set in seemed to swell into the flow of a 
mighty stream by the next year. The emigration was unprecedented, and 
Anglo-American conquest and occupancy in Kentucky and the North-west 

I Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 98-99. 



PERMANENT SETTLEMENT OF LEXINGTON. 



149 



"became a manifest destiny. Clark's master-stroke of generalship and states- 
manship was the pivotal point on which balanced the fate of empire. 

Colonel Floyd afterward writes : ' ' Three hundred large family boats 
arrived during the spring of 1780 at the falls, and as many as ten or fifteen 
wagons could be seen daily going from there. By this time there were six 
stations on Beargrass creek, with a population of six hundred souls. The 
price of corn fluctuated from fifty dollars per bushel in December, 1779, to 
one hundred and sixty-five in January, 1780, and thirty dollars in May. 
These prices were at a season of obstructed navigation during the unparal- 
leled cold winter of 1779-80, and in continental paper which had depreciated 
as forty to one at the close of the year 1779, as seventv-five to one at the end 




STOCKADE AT LEXINGTON. 

of 1780, and as one thousand 
to one in December, 1781." 
1 In April of this year the 
first permanent settlement of Lex- 
mgton as an important station was 
made. A number of citizens of Harrodstown and vicinity came over to 
the north side of Kentucky river to locate and improve this place. Among 
these were Robert Patterson, James Morrison, Samuel Johnson, David 
Mitchell, Josiah Collins, Elijah Collins, James Barberry, William McCon- 
nell, Hugh Shannon, John Maxwell, James Masterson, and James Duncan, 
a number of whom were noted as among the most enterprising and daring 
of the pioneers of Kentucky. As improved and fortified during the year, 
Lexington consisted of three rows of houses or cabins, the two outer rows 
constituting a portion of the walls of the stockade. These extended from 
the corner of a square, afterward known as Levy's corner, to James Master- 

1 Collins, Vol. IL, p. 179; Ranck's History. 



15° 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



son's house, on Main street. The intervals between the houses were stock- 
aded. The outlet was a puncheon door with a bar to secure it. A block 
house commanded the public spring, and a common field included the site 
of the court-house square. Though the discipline about the fort is said 
never to have been very rigid, nor the stockade kept in strict order, this sta- 
tion escaped any serious danger from Indian attack. 

Out of this Uttle plant grew the neat and beautiful city of Lexington, the 
charmed center of the famed Bluegrass region of Kentucky. Its beginning 
was under the fostering energy and care of Colonel Robert Patterson, a brave 
and meritorious adventurer among the frontiersmen who laid the foundations 
of the Commonwealth in the cement of blood and toil. He owned and 
improved the property on the hill in the western part of the city. 

In this same year Bryan's station, about five miles north-east of Lexing- 
ton, was settled by four brothers from North Carolina, one of whom, William 
Bryan, had married a sister of Daniel Boone. ^ This vicinity was afterward 
much infested by the Indians. 

Martin's improvement on Stoner, three miles below Paris, was reoccupied 
and strengthened with stockade defenses between the cluster of cabins that 
formed the main outline of the station. Isaac Ruddell also rebuilt and for- 
tified Hinkson's in the same way, and the two became this year the main 
rendezvous for the settlers on the waters of Licking. 

Pittman's station, one of the earliest in the Green river country, was 
established on the right bank of Green river, in this year, and about five 
miles west of Greensburg, near the mouth of Pittman's creek, showing a 
disposition to extend the settlements to regions distant from the first cen- 
ters. 

One of the most important stations erected during the year was that by 
a party led by Squire Boone, in Shelby county. Besides himself and fam- 
ily, the following men, some of them with families, were of the party : Evan 
Hinton, Alexander Bryan, Richard Gates, John Stapleton, and George Yunt. ^ 
Squire Boone referred to this in a subsequent deposition as "his station on , 
the Painted Stone." It was located on Clear creek, near the present site 
of Shelbyville, and for two years was almost the only settlement between 
Beargrass and Leestown, now Frankfort. 

This year brought back to Kentucky, and to their old survey improve- 
ment on Salt river, the McAfee brothers and their families. The war with 
England, in which several of the family participated, and the derangement 
of home affairs, had kept them nearly three years away, during which time 
their cattle had run wild in the woods, or fallen a prey to Indian marauders. 
They were once more back on the old ground of their first choosing, having 
passed Cumberland Gap with pack-horses. They at once proceeded to for- 
tify their position by erecting the usual quadrangular enclosures of cabins 
and stockades, well known subsequendy as McAfee's station. 

I McClung; Collins, Vol. II., p. i86. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 710. 



CAPTURE AND DEATH OF JOSEPH M COUN. 151 

The winter of 1779-80 became noted in history as the severest in the 
early annals of Kentucky. From the middle of November to the middle 
of February there was no cessation of cold, and thick ice and deep snow 
continued without thaw. Many of the cattle perished, and numbers of bears, 
buffaloes, deer, wolves, beavers, and wild turkeys were frozen to death. Some- 
times the famished wild animals would come up in the yards of the stations 
along with the tame cattle. Such was the scarcity, from the interruption of 
transportation and the increase of population, that a single johnny cake would 
be divided into a dozen parts, and distributed around to the inmates of the 
house, to serve for two meals. Even this supply gave out, and all were 
compelled to live for weeks on wild game. 

Early in the spring, some of the men from McAfees went to the Falls of 
Ohio, where they purchased some corn at sixty dollars a bushel, the Ohio 
river being for months frozen over. This was an enormous price, even at 
the value of the depreciated money; yet it was better than starvation. For- 
tunately, a delightful spring opened, and the rapid growth of vegetation 
promised relief from these privations. They saw the peach-trees they had 
planted five years before break out in full bloom, and bear loads of young 
fruit, most luscious to their tastes when matured. The young apple-trees, 
too, were growing well, and gave to all a homelike air. 

Dr. Davidson's narrative continues : 

"Plenty and happiness smiled upon the settlement, and all seemed pro- 
pitious, when their flattering prospects were all at once damped by a mel- 
ancholy event that filled every heart with gloom. 

"Joseph McCoun, a promising lad, the youngest and favorite of the 
whole family, was surprised and carried off by a party of Shawanee Indians, 
while looking after some cattle in an adjoining glade. His companion es- 
caped, and immediately gave the alarm; but pursuit was vain. The savages 
carried their unhappy victim to a little town on the headwaters of Mad river, 
about six miles above the spot now occupied by the town of Springfield, 
Ohio, where they tied him to a stake, and burned him with excruciating 
tortures. After this heartrending event, which took place in March, 1781, 
the families, seven in number, abandoned the farms they had been culti- 
vating, and took refuge in the station. This step was rendered absolutely 
necessary, for the Indians were prowling in every direction, stealing horses, 
attacking the armed companies that passed from one station to the other, 
and killing and scalping every unfortunate straggler that fell into their hands. 
The expedition under General Clark, in which the men of the Salt river set- 
tlement, burning for vengeance, participated, daunted them for a time, and 
restored quiet. 

"The insecurities of the settlers, and the hazards to which they were 
exposed about this period, appeared to have been very great. There was 
no communication between the stations, of which there were now several, 
except by armed companies. The inhabitants, not daring to spend the night 



152 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

out of the fort, cultivated their corn during the day, with the hoe in one 
hand and a gun in the other. A party went one morning to a neighboring 
plantation to assist in pulling flax, a friendly office always cheerfully tendered, 
but were unconsciously waylaid by a band of Indians. The wily savages, 
afraid to make an open attack, cut down bushes and constructed a screen 
in a fit situation for an ambuscade, so that no one would be able to discover 
them till within a few yards. Behind this leafy screen they lay, watching 
for the return of their unsuspecting victims, and anticipating, with savage 
eagerness, the pleasure of scalping the whole party. One of the young men, 
John McCoun, Jr., proposed to his companions, on their way homeward, to 
deviate a little for the purpose of gathering plums, a quantity of which grew 
at no great distance. As the sun was not yet down, they consented; and 
in consequence of this suggestion, they reached home by a more circuitous 
but safer route. We may imagine the mingled amazement and delight with 
which they discovered next day what an escape they had made from immi- 
nent danger. The deserted blind, and the spot where the Indians lay, till 
their impatience and chagrin became insupportable, were objects of curi- 
osity for several years." 

An encounter of memorable fatality took place between a large party of 
Indians and Colonel David Rogers and Captain Robert Benham, command- 
ing a couple of keel boats loaded with military stores from New Orleans, 
and manned by nearly one hunared men. Colonel Rogers, with the keel 
boats, ascended the Ohio, on his return to Pittsburgh, and took Captain 
Benham on board at Louisville. The latter was then placed in command 
of one of the boats, and the little squadron — the second escort of military 
supplies procured from New Orleans — moved on its destination up the Ohio. 
When Colonel Rogers reached the sand bar above the present city of Cin- 
cinnati, he found it bare more than half the width of the river. He now 
discovered a number of Indians, on rafts and in canoes, coming out of the 
mouth of the Little Miami river, which was then high, and shot its waters, 
and, consequently, the Indians on their crafts, nearly across the Ohio river. 
On seeing the enemy. Colonel Rogers ordered his men to land and attack, 
thinking he would be able to surprise them; but on landing and marching 
through the willows with which the bar was then covered, and before they 
arrived at the place where they expected to meet the Indians, they were 
themselves surrounded by nearly five times their number. The enemy 
quickly despatched the greatest part of the crew with Colonel Rogers. 
The remainder endeavored to retreat to the boats, but they were pursued 
too relentlessly with the tomahawk. One of the boats, however, escaped 
with two men and reached the falls. Not more than nine or ten ever returned 
to their families and friends. It may be safely affirmed that the annals of 
Indian or border warfare contain not a bloodier page. 

Compared with the battle of the Blue Licks, Rogers' defeat was undoubt- 
edly the more sanguinary. In both instances, the success of the Indians may 



A 



CAPTAIN BENHAM WOUNDED. 1 53 

1)6 attributed more to the nature of the battle-ground than to their numerical 
■superiority. They lay encamped at the foot of the river hill, a few hundred 
yards from its bank, on which Rogers and his men stood anxiously watching 
the rafts and canoes mentioned above. In this situation the Indians had 
only to flank to the right and left from the base of the hill to the river — a 
maneuver which they always performed with skill and celerity — to secure their 
prey. Thus hemmed in, surrounded and surprised, it is only astonishing, 
■considering the disparity of numbers, that they were not all massacred. ^ 

Leonidas in the straits of Thermopylae had not to contend with more 
■discouraging circumstances than the brave and unfortunate Rogers in this 
bloody horseshoe. The Indians took and plundered one of the boats, by 
which they got considerable booty, consisting of ready-made clothing and 
munitions of war, which Colonel Rogers had obtained from the Spaniards 
for the use of the forts on the frontier of Virginia. 

It may be asked, what could have collected on the banks of the Ohio, 
at so early a period, four or five hundred Indian warriors armed and equipped 
for battle ? They were for a predatory incursion against the white settlements 
in the interior of Kentucky — an expedition which they had undertaken in 
the vain expectation of extirpating the settlers. The chief of this daring 
band of marauders was a Canadian Frenchman of the half blood by the 
name of Byrd. Born and reared among savages, he was alike distinguished 
for cunning and ferocity — qualities which are supposed to be somewhat pecul- 
iar to this mongrel breed. Such, however, was the outline of his character 
as drawn by Colonel Campbell, whom he carried a prisoner to Detroit, and 
who was treated by him on the way in a most barbarous manner. 

Captain Benham, shortly after breaking through the enemy's line, was 
dangerously wounded through the hips. Fortunately, a large tree had lately 
fallen near the spot where he lay, and with great pain he dragged himself 
into the top, and lay concealed among the branches. The Indians, eager in 
pursuit of the others, passed him without notice, and by midnight all was 
quiet. On the following day, the Indians returned to the battle-ground, 
in order to strip the dead and take care of the boats. Benham, although 
in danger of famishing, permitted them to pass without making known his 
condition, very correctly supposing that his crippled legs would only induce 
them to tomahawk him on the spot, in order to avoid the trouble of carrying 
him to their town. He lay close, therefore, until the evening of the second 
day, when, perceiving a raccoon descending a tree near him, he shot it, 
hoping to devise some means of reaching it, when he could kindle a fire 
and make a meal. Scarcely had his gun cracked, however, when he heard 
a human cry, apparently not more than fifty yards off. Supposing it to be 
an Indian, he hastily reloaded his gun and remained silent, expecting the 
approach of an enemy. Presently the same voice was heard again, but much 
nearer. Still Benham made no reply, but cocked his gun, and sat ready to 

I Butler, pp. 102-6; McCIung's Sketches. 



154 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

fire as soon as an object appeared. A third halloo was quickly heard, fol- 
lowed by an exclamation of impatience and distress, which convinced Ben- 
ham that the unknown must be a Kentuckian. As soon, therefore, as he 
heard the expression, "Whoever you are, for God's sake, answer me!" he 
replied with readiness, and the parties were soon together. Benham, as 
we have already observed, was shot through both legs. The comrade, John 
Watson, who now appeared, had escaped from the same battle, with both 
arms broken 1 Thus, each was enabled to supply what the other wanted. 
Benham, having the perfect use of his arms, could load his gun and kill 
game with great readiness ; while his friend, having the use of his legs, could 
kick the game to the spot where Benham sat, who was thus enabled to cook 
it. When no wood was near them, his companion would rake up brush 
with his feet, and gradually roll it within reach of Benham's hands, who 
constantly fed him and dressed his wounds, as well as his own, tearing up 
both of their shirts for that purpose. They found some difficulty in pro- 
curing water at first; but Benham, at length, took his own hat, and placing 
the rim between the teeth of his companion, directed him to wade into the 
Licking, up to his neck, and dip the hat into the water by sinking his head. 
Watson, who could walk, was thus enabled to bring water by means of his 
teeth, which Benham would afterward dispose of as was necessary. 

In a few days they had killed all the squirrels and birds within reach, 
and Watson was sent out to drive game within gunshot of the spot to which 
Benham was confined. Fortunately, wild turkeys were abundant in these 
woods, and his companion would walk around and drive them toward Ben- 
ham, who seldom failed to kill two or three of each flock. In this manner 
they supported themselves for several weeks, until their wounds had healed 
so as to enable them to travel. They then shifted their quarters, and put 
up a small shed at the mouth of the Licking, where they encamped until 
late in November, anxiously expecting the arrival of some boat, which should 
convey them to the Falls of Ohio. 

On the 27th of November, they observed a flatboat moving leisurely down 
the river. Benham instantly hoisted his hat upon a stick, and hallooed loudly 
for help. The crew, however, supposing them to be Indians, with inten- 
tion to decoy them ashore, paid no attention to their signals of distress, but 
instantly put over to the opposite side of the river, and manning every oar, 
endeavored to pass them as rapidly as possible. Benham beheld them pass 
him with a sensation bordering on anguish, for the place was much frequented 
by Indians, and the approach of winter threatened them with despair, unless 
speedily relieved. At length, after the boat had passed him nearly half a 
mile, he saw a canoe put off from its stern, and cautiously approach the Ken- 
tucky shore, evidently reconnoitering them, with great suspicion. He called 
loudly upon them for assistance, mentioned his name, and made known his 
condition. After a long parley, and many evidences of reluctance on the 
part of the crew, the canoe at length touched the shore, and Benham and 



THE RESTLESS DARING OF ALL MEN. 



•55 



his friend were taken on board. Their appearance excited much suspicion. 
They were almost entirely naked, and their faces were garnished with six 
weeks' growth of beard. Benham was barely able to hobble upon crutches, 
and Watson could manage to feed himself with one of his hands. They 
were instantly taken to Louisville, where their clothes, which had been car- 
ried off in the boat which deserted them, were restored to them, and after 
a few weeks' confinement, both were perfectly restored. 

In this age, and at this distant interval of time, it is difficult for us to 
realize that there were sufficient inducements to attract immigrants to a coun- 
try so beset with dangers, and where life and property seem daily to have 
been at the hazard of savage assault. Yet, we find to-day that the restless 
spirit of adventure, and the ever insatiate curiosity in man, are alone suffi- 
cient to incite him to deeds of daring and danger as great as those which 
beset the early Kentuckians. Though disaster and failure follow upon each 
vain attempt to reach the North Pole, yet others are ever ready to put their 
lives in jeopardy again, and hazard their all, when another Arctic expedition 
is announced. Thus, the restless goings of men explore and reveal to us the 
mysteries of interior Africa, the antiquated wonders of Corea and China, 
and the isolated resources and treasures of Mexico and Central America. 
Besides this mere spirit of unrest and desire for change, there were the pros- 
pective homes and fortunes, the peace and plenty, and the security and 
independence that must come at last to the Kentucky pioneer, if not for 
himself to enjoy, at least for his children. 



^56 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

(1780.) 



Distress from the famous " hard winter" 
of 1780. 

Cattle and wild animals perish. 

Increased immigration. 

Fort Nelson built on the site of Louis- 
ville. 

First land entries on same. 

First lands confiscated for disloyalty. 

Clark builds Fort Jefferson on the Mis- 
sissippi. 

Intrigues of the French and Spanish 
ministers. 

To control the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi. 

To limit the United States territory. 

To make of Kentucky a Spanish prov- 
ince. 

Chickasaw Indians attack Fort Jefferson. 

Badly defeated. 

Colonel Byrd, with five hundred In- 
dians and some Canadians, captures Rud- 
dle's and Martin's stations. 

Cruel barbarities to the prisoners. 

John Hinkson's escape. 

His perilous adventures in flight. 

General Clark aroused to retaliation by 
these aggressions. 

Calls out one thousand volunteers to ren- 
dezvous at the mouth of Licking. 

Builds a block house on the site of Cin- 
cinnati. 

The first house built there. 

Marches on and captures Chillicothe and 
Pickaway towns. 

Indians flee. 

Towns and crops destroyed. 

Fight at Pickaway. 

Kenton remembers the town where he 
was to be burned. 



Pays the Indians back with his rifle. 

Jacob Wickersham baffles an Indian foe 
with pumpkins. 

Stephen Frank killed near the site of 
Frankfort. 

This the origin of the name, Frank- 
fort. 

Capture and escape of Alexander Mc- 
Connell near Lexington. 

Attack on the Montgomery settlement. 

Bloody work. 

Logan's pursuit. 

Edward Boone killed near Blue Licks. 

Indian dog trails Daniel in pursuit. 

Boone shoots it. 

Stroud's station attacked. 

Thrilling incident of Boone. 

First settlements in Hardin county. 

First in Logan county. 

Induced by survey parties on Tennessee 
and Kentucky boundary. 

Surveyed by Dr. Walker, for Virginia, 
and Colonel Richard Henderson, for North 
Carolina. 

The latter abandons the survey. 

Kentucky divided into three counties, 
Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fayette. 

John Fitch, the inventor of the first 
passenger steamer, comes to Kentucky, 

Daniel Boone loses large sums of money 
in traveling to Virginia, his own and others. 

Stephen Trigg and John Todd elected 
representatives in the Virginia Assembly. 

Estill station erected. 

Also George Boone's, Stephen Han- 
cock's, David Crew's, and John Tanner's, 
in Madison county. 

Settlements in Clay, Estill, and other 
counties from these. 



The enemies to the colonization and settlement of Kentucky, which as' 
sumed such a tidal growth, found a new ally in the unprecedented severity 



THE "HARD WINTER" EXPERIENCES. I 57 

of the winter that ushered in the year 1780. ^ The increase of population the 
preceding autumn had consumed the limited supply of the products of the field 
and garden by the closing of December. It was expected to replenish by 
transportation, as needed, but the solid ice, the deep snow, and the extreme 
rigors of the weather, made this impossible. The privations and sufferings 
consequent were sufficient to make the season ever after remembered as the 
"hard winter." For months, the creeks or smaller streams were frozen solid. 
Many families, moving in by river and land, were compelled to encamp and 
abide the inhospitable elements, and to endure the pains of hunger and cold 
in the midst of the solitudes of the wilderness. The desolate camp-fires were 
lit along the banks of the navigable rivers wherever the enfolding ice may 
have arrested the floating boat; or in the forests, where the swelling snow- 
drifts forbade further progress of the wearied pack-horse. The diminishing 
stores of food were doled out with miserly hands, and saved for the ominous 
future by substituting for the time the spoils of the hunter from the adjacent 
woods. Some, more destitute, were compelled to depend on the generous 
sacrifice of neighboring camps to share with them the meager supplies. 

In the meantime, both the domestic cattle and the wild animals became 
so impoverished that many of both kinds died for the want of nourishment 
where there happened to be no cane, the common winter herbage for the 
buffalo and deer, as well as for cattle. Such was the extremity to which some 
emigrants were reduced, that they were forced to eat of the flesh of these dead 
animals, or accept the alternative of themselves perishing of hunger. The 
supply of breadstuffs was generally exhausted, and the majority of the people 
for months lived on meat alone. With rich and poor, master and servant, 
delicate and robust, one common fate and one common fare were shared 
together. 

The advance o£ the vernal season afforded some relief. The springing 
cow, feasting on the foliage of leaves and grasses, divided her secretive treas- 
ury with the friendly family, but too eager to add the items of milk and 
butter to the short bill of fare so long endured. The indigenous salads and 
early berries came next, and finally the feast of garden vegetables and the 
unctuous roasting-ears of corn gave relish to the appetizing hunger of long 
fasting. Bounteous Providence restored again, and there was plenty in the 
land; but not yet its adjunct, peace. The sunshine that melted the snows 
and ice, and which brought to the people these blessings, brought also their 
old and familiar acquaintances, the Indians. 

In the meantime, and despite all discouragements, the inflow of immigra- 
tion continued, new arrivals were frequent, and new settlements multiplied, 
until the inchoate Commonwealth began to assume the proportions of an 
interior colony.^ 

The Falls of Ohio seemed to attract the especial attention of emigrants, 
land agents, and adventurers, as well as increase in importance as the center 

I Marshall, Vol. 1., pp. 102-3. z Marshall, Vol. I., p. 103. 



158 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

for military operations. There were now on the waters of Beargrass, Linn, 
Sullivan, Hoagland, Floyd, Spring, and Middle stations, besides the Falls. 
Early in the year, Colonel George Slaughter, with one hundred and fifty 
State troops, descended the Ohio to the Falls, where Colonel Clark still main- 
tained headquarters. 

Fort Nelson, on the north side of Main, between Seventh and Eighth 
streets, mentioned before, was much extended and strengthened, and was 
now, and after, invulnerable to any attack to be made upon it. ^ Of the 
lower part of the plain on which Louisville is built, two thousand acres were 
patented December 16, 1773, in the name of John Connolly, a surgeon's 
mate in the hospital of the royal forces, by virtue of the English king's proc- 
lamation of 1763; and two thousand acres adjoining, and below Connolly's, 
to Charles de Warrendorff, an ensign in the royal regiment of Pennsylvania. 
In 1774, the latter conveyed his tract to Connolly and to Colonel John Camp- 
bell, an Irish gentleman, who settled afterward in Louisville, and became a 
prominent citizen. Connolly, after this, conveyed half of the first tract to 
Campbell, and Campbell conveyed half the Warrendorff tract to Connolly, 
so that they held two thousand acres each, the upper and lower thousands 
belonging to Connolly, and the middle two thousand to Campbell. 

An episode, which is a part of our history, in connection with Dr. Con- 
nolly's title here, is most interesting. In 1774, James Douglas, deputy for 
Colonel William Preston, surveyor for Fincastle county, Virginia, surveyed 
two thousand acres for Alexander McKee, on the headwaters of the south 
branch of Elkhorn. In 1780, the Virginia Legislature established Transyl- 
vania Seminary, and one-sixth of the surveyor's fees, together with eight 
thousand acres of the first land in the then county of Kentucky, which 
should be confiscated for disloyalty to the American cause, were granted for 
the endowment of said institution. ♦ 

On July I, 1780, the first inquisition of escheat was held at Lexington, 
by the sheriff of Kentucky county, George May escheator. John Bowman, 
Daniel Boone, Nat. Randolph, Waller Overton, Robert McAfee, Edward 
Gather, Henry Wilson, Joseph Willis, Paul Froman, J ere. Tilford, James 
Wood, and Thomas Gant, gentlemen, jurymen, were empaneled to try whether 
John Connolly and Alexander McKee be British subjects or not. The ver- 
dict was duly rendered, that they were British subjects, and after April 19, 
1775, of their own free will, departed from the said States and joined the sub- 
jects of his Britannic majesty, and that on the 4th of July, 1776, said Connolly 
"was possessed of two thousand acres on the Ohio, opposite the falls," and 
said McKee "of two thousand acres, on the headwaters of the south branch 
of Elkhorn, and no more." A large portion of Louisville is therefore built 
on the confiscated land that formed a part of the first tributory offerings of 
disloyalty to American liberty. 



1 Collins, Vol. II., pp. 359-60; Louisville Directory, iS 

2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 183. 



FORT JEFFERSON ESTABLISHED. I 59 

In 1780, the Legislature of Virginia passed an act for establishing the 
town of Louisville at the Falls of Ohio, and appointed John Todd, Stephen 
Trigg, George Slaughter, John Floyd, William Pope, George Merriwether, 
Andrew Hynes, and James Sullivan, gentlemen, trustees to lay off the town 
on a tract of one thousand acres of land, which had been granted to John 
Connolly by the British Government, and which he had forfeited by adhering 
to the said Government. Each purchaser was to build on his own lot "a 
dwelling house, sixteen feet by twenty at least, with a brick or stone chim- 
ney." The city plat was laid off this year, by William Pope. Subsequently, 
a new survey was made by William Peyton and Daniel Sullivan, who platted 
the out-lots. All traces of these surveys, as well as that of Captain Bullitt's, 
in 1773, have been lost. As far back as 1819, the only plat on record was 
that of Jared Brookes, adopted in 181 2, which is just one-half of the two 
thousand acres granted to Connolly, the division line having been run in 
1784, by Daniel Sullivan. ^ 

Though the heavy re-enforcement of Colonel Slaughter, with one hundred 
and fifty men, and the improvements made, rendered Fort Nelson a secure 
retreat, the garrison seems to have afforded but little protection to the neigh- 
boring setdements, and rather to have drawn the attention of the Indians to 
that quarter. It was probably noticed by them that the folks were less cau- 
tious in this vicinity than in other places, and this carelessness from fancied 
security only invited the attacks of the enemy. The vicinity of the Ohio, 
being the apparent boundary between the hostile parties, offered to the sav- 
ages some advantages. They could with impunity approach its bank upon 
their own ground, cross it when convenient, strike the settlement a blow, 
and recross the river, before a pursuing party could be organized. Under 
these advantages, soldiers were shot near the fort, lives were lost or prisoners 
taken among the adjacent setders, and horses stolen, with frequent impunity 
and occasional retaliation. Yet, the improvements extended in different 
directions. 

Early in the summer, Governor Thomas Jefferson having sent instructions 
to establish a post on the Mississippi, with cannon to fortify it. Colonel 
George Rogers Clark, with about two hundred soldiers, left Louisville and 
proceeded down the river to a point called the Iron Banks, five miles below 
the mouth of the Ohio, and there erected a fort, with several block-houses, 
which he called Fort Jefferson. This division and depletion of the forces 
for the defense of Kentucky caused some dissatisfaction among its people, 
who felt that all'were needed for frontier safety. The step was thought wise 
and imperative, however, by the sagacious governor of Virginia. 2 It was 
well known that both the courts of France and Spain were inimical to the 
extension of the American boundary to the Mississippi, and that these pow^- 

1 Collins, Vol. II., pp. 371 and 360. 

2 Marshall, Vol. I., p. in; Butler, p. 112; Clark's Memoirs; Jefferson's Letters, June, 1778, and 
April, 1780. 



l6o HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ers in Europe, and their provincial agents in their gulf coast possessions and 
west of the Mississippi, employed every artifice to prevent this aggrandize- 
ment by the United States. 

The French minister at Philadelphia had prevailed on Congress to instruct 
its ministers in Paris "to govern themselves by the advice and opinion of 
the French Government," and finally obtained an instruction to the Ameri- 
can minister, Mr. Jay, not to insist on the free navigation of the Mississippi 
below latitude thirty-one degrees north, a point not far from Natchez. ^ The 
efforts of Spain and France for years after to limit the United States to the 
territory east of the Alleghanies, and to divide the great West to the Missis- 
sippi river between Spain and Great Britain, making the Ohio river the line, 
form an interesting chapter of Kentucky history which will receive attention 
hereafter. At this time, and subsequently, the aim was, by the arts and 
intrigues of diplomacy, to make of Kentucky a Spanish province. The sec- 
ond born infant Commonwealth to the thirteen confederated States of the rev- 
olution, and with a geographic relation to command the navigation of the 
Mississippi and its tributaries, and her own political destiny a key to determ- 
ine the claims of the first powers of Europe and of the United States to the 
territorial empire of the Mississippi valley, the history of Kentucky embraces 
in its amplitude the discussion of some of the most important questions of 
national and international politics in its earliest annals. 

The instructions of Governor Jefferson of course were meant to counter- 
act the intrigues and encroachments of these interested European powers in 
the great valley of the West. The Chickasaw Indians were at this time the 
undisputed owners of that part of Kentucky now lying west of the Tennessee 
river, including the ground at the mouth of Mayfield creek, where Fort Jef- 
ferson was built. By some misadventure, the instruction of the governor 
to purchase the site, or get consent of the Indians, was not carried out, thus 
arousing their fierce resentment. After awhile, they began marauding and 
murdering individuals of the isolated families that had settled around the 
fort ; among others, the entire family of Mr. Music, excepting himself. They 
captured a white man, and compelled him to reveal to them the condition 
of the fort garrison and the families who had sought refuge there. There 
were but about thirty men in the garrison, under Captain George, and a large 
proportion of these sick with the ague and fever. They were very much 
reduced in food supplies from the presence of the refugees, and the destruc- 
tion of their field and garden crops near by the Indians. In this condition, 
and under the lead of a Scotchman named Colbert, who had lived with and 
acquired a great influence over these Indians, they appeared in force, several 
hundred strong, and began a siege and attack upon the fort in the summer 
of 1781.2 After resistance of five days, the respective leaders, Colbert and 
George, met under a flag of truce to try and agree on terms of capitulation, 

1 Butler, p. 112 ; Pitkin's United States, Vol. II., p. 512 ; Jay's Life, Vol. I., p. 237. 

2 Butler, p. 119; Collins, Vol. II., p. 39. 



ruddle's station surrenders. i6i 

a summons to surrender within an hour having been refused. Terms could 
not be arranged, and the fighting was resumed. The issue was near at 
hand, as a messenger had been dispatched to Kaskaskia for aid. A des- 
perate night assault was made by the Indians in force. When they had 
advanced in short range and in close order, Captain George Owens, who 
commanded one of the block-houses, had the swivels loaded with rifle and 
musket-balls, and fired them into the crowded ranks. The fire was very 
destructive and the slaughter excessive. The enemy, repulsed and dis- 
heartened, fell back to their camps. Soon after, Colonel Clark arrived with 
a relief force, and the Chickasaw army gave up the siege. This fort was 
some time after abandoned, from its isolated position, and the difficulty of 
supplying so remote a garrison. The evacuation was the signal for peace, 
which was tacitly accepted by the Indians and faithfully observed by both 
parties after. 

The daring expeditions of Clark and Bowman into the Indian country 
seem to have aroused the British authorities to greater exertions, in order to 
counteract the impressions made on their Indian allies of the prowess of the 
Americans. With this view, a formidable military force of six hundred 
Canadians and Indians, commanded by Colonel Byrd, of the English army, 
with several pieces of artillery, made an incursion into Kentucky. The 
artillery and its equipment were embarked on boats down the Miami and up 
Licking river, as far as the forks, where Falmouth now stands. From this 
rendezvous, Colonel Byrd marched in full force for Ruddle's station, and 
on the 22d of June, signalized the presence of his army before that place by 
the report of one of his cannon discharged. The occupants were completely 
taken by surprise. This was remarkable, as the invading army had been 
twelve days on the march from the Ohio river, and had cleared a wagon 
road over much of the way. It showed a want of vigilance in the measures 
of safety and defense, so common to the garrisons of these posts. A timely 
warning would have availed nothing against the formidable numbers and 
their equipment, but a timely retreat to a place of safety might have been 
effected. The sight of such an army and of the artillery paralyzed all hope 
of resistance; and on a summons by Colonel Byrd to an unconditional sur- 
render. Captain Ruddle answered that he would consent only on condition 
that the prisoners should be under the protection of the English, and not 
delivered to the Indians. To these terms Colonel Byrd consented, and 
promptly the fort was surrendered and the gates thrown open. The savages 
rushed into the station in advance, and each Indian seized the first person 
he could lay his hands on, and claimed such as his prisoner. In this way, 
famihes were separated and torn asunder, and subjected to the cruel 
caprices of their savage captors. Husbands and wives, parents and children, 
old and young, were made victims to their barbarities. The distressful cries 
of the children, the distracted throes of the mothers, when torn asunder, were 
heartrending. The scenes were indescribable. Captain Ruddle remon- 



l62 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

strated with Colonel Byrd against the atrocious conduct of the allies ; but the 
latter could only answer that, while he deplored and condemned these 
])roceedings, it was out of his power to restrain the savages; their numbers 
being so much greater than that of the English soldiers that he himself was 
completely in their power. ^ 

After appropriating all the property in the fort, and dividing the prisoners 
among themselves, the Indians eagerly importuned Colonel Byrd to march 
on and capture Martin's post, five miles further on. He was so affected by 
the brutal conduct of the Indians toward the captives and their insubordinate 
license in his command that he firmly refused, unless the chiefs would pledge 
themselves in behalf of their warriors that all the prisoners taken should be 
entirely under his control, and that the Indians should only be entitled to 
the plunder. Upon this basis of agreement, the army marched to Martin's 
station, and captured it without opposition. The agreement was here carried 
out, and the prisoners surrendered to the British, while the property was 
seized by the red men. They next urged the British commander to march 
at once on Bryan's station and Lexington, so elated were they at the easy 
successes and rich spoils of the two recent captures. Byrd firmly declined 
to invade farther, alleging the improbability of success, the impossibility of 
procuring supplies for his soldiers and the prisoners, the impracticability of 
moving his artillery through a heavily-wooded country without roadways, 
the dangers of being surrounded and cut off from retreat to the Ohio river 
by an overwhelming force, and finally the necessity of descending the Licking 
river before the subsidence of the high water. 

There is a tradition, founded on the statements of prisoners afterwards 
returned, that Colonel Byrd was so affected by the inhuman conduct of the 
Indians toward the unfortunate captives that he determined in his own mind 
not to be a further instrument to execute the diabolical orders of the British 
Government, or to a re-enactment of the atrocities of its savage allies; and 
that this was the real cause of his sudden withdrawal from the country. 
However this may be, there was certainly plausible force in the reasons 
assigned, that there was difficulty in moving artillery through the unbroken 
forests, danger from an attack of five or six hundred riflemen from the cover 
of trees, after their custom, and a want of food supply in the country after 
the exhaustive winter previous. 

Byrd's army returned to the forks of Licking, and embarked with all 
possible dispatch upon the boats that were left there, with its artillery and 
stores. At this place, the discontented Indians separated from Byrd, and 
took with them all the prisoners from Ruddle's station. They were treated 
with violence, especially the weak and feeble, and such as sank down 
exhausted under their burdens were murdered with tomahawk or scalping- 
knife. Some were captives for years; some children, perhaps, never re- 
turned. 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 107; Butler, p. no; Collins, Vol. II., pp. 327-8. 



HINKSON ESCAPES. 1 63 

Among the prisoners was John Hinkson, a daring and expert woodsman. 
The second night after separation from Byrd, the Indians encamped near 
the river at nightfall. While they were kindling a fire with difficulty, on 
account of the wet, Hinkson sprang out into the dark, and soon disappeared 
in the brush. The alarm was given and pursuit made, but against hope. 
Hinkson ran some distance into the woods, and lay down by the side of a 
log, with the shadow of a large beech tree to help conceal his person, until 
he felt satisfied that the Indians had given up the pursuit. He then moved 
off stealthily under the clouds of a very dark night. He had no object nor 
thing to guide his course, and directing his steps, as he thought, toward 
Lexington, soon found himself in hearing of the camp of Indians he had 
just escaped from. Without light enough to see the moss on the bodies of 
the trees to guide him, he was much perplexed. Finally remembering that 
the little air stirring was from the west, he would moisten his hand and hold 
it up until the cold side indicated the point of the compass, and by this sign 
traveled for some hours toward Lexington ; then, in weariness, sat down by 
the root of a tree and fell asleep. Before day he awoke, and found all 
enveloped in a dense fog. At dawn of light, the gobbling of turkeys, the 
bleating of fawns, and the hoot of owls, were heard in various directions. 
Hinkson was too expert in Indian wiles to be thus deceived. He dis- 
tinguished the imitations of the cries of birds and animals, and avoided the 
spots from whence they came. Though several times very near to them, 
with the aid of the fog, he managed to escape, and to safely reach Lex- 
ington with the full news of the disaster at Ruddle's and Martin's. 

The disastrous defeat and massacre of the forces of Colonel Rogers and 
Captain Benham, near the mouth of the Licking, and the capture of Ruddle's 
and Martin's, by Byrd, called into active operation the military policy of 
Colonel George Rogers Clark, who held that no injury of importance done 
by the enemy should go unpunished. He waged a war of relentless aggres- 
sion and retaliation, and held that the Indians must not long be influenced 
"by the prestige and encouragement of any temporary successes in their war 
•upon the whites. Clark now hastened from Vincennes to Louisville, and from 
the latter headquarters began his arrangements and issued his orders, rallying 
and organizing all the men of arms in Kentucky for a campaign against the 
Miami towns, in Ohio. Six hundred men were gathered at Louisville, and 
the remainder from the interior. The general rendezvous was the mouth of 
Licking river. The troops camped on both sides of the Ohio. So promptly 
had the militia responded to the call that over one thousand troops gathered 
at the appointed place, all armed and eager to be led forward. A small battery 
of artillery was added to the equipment. General Clark assumed chief 
command, while the two regiments into which the force was divided were 
led by Colonels Logan and Linn, ^ ready for the march, every man eager 
to avenge the injuries inflicted. 

I Marshall, Vol. 1., p. log; Clark's Memoirs; Collins, Vol. II., p. 449. 



164 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

While tarrying a few days in camp, opposite the mouth of Licking, and 
where is now reared the queenly city of Cincinnati, with its vast commerce 
and teeming population, it was found necessary to build a blockhouse, for 
the purpose of leaving some stores, and some men wounded by skirmishing^ 
Indians on the way up the Ohio. The sound of the axman's strokes and the 
falling timbers echoed through the virgin forest, and the first house ever 
built on the site of the great city of to-day, speedily went up under the busy 
hands of the Kentucky foresters. 

The expedition impatiently took up its march northward into Ohio, from, 
the place of rendezvous. The objective points were Chillicothe, Pickaway, 
and other noted towns on the waters of the upper Scioto and Miami rivers. 
With celerity and all the secrecy which could be observed, the Kentuckians- 
appeared before Chillicothe in time to take the Indians by surprise, who 
fled without resistance, leaving all their property at the mercy of the aveng- 
ing army of Clark. The houses and all their rude furnishings were set to 
the consuming torch; and after feasting on all that could be consumed of 
garden vegetables, of luscious roasting-ears, and of the orchard fruits just 
ripe, the remainder was destroyed, and a scene of desolation made of the 
homes of the red men. Following on to Pickaway town, the retreating sav- 
ages halted and gave battle. After a sharp fight under their usual methods, 
with about seventeen whites killed and a number wounded, and many In- 
dians, they again retreated, leaving the town and all property in its vicinity- 
defenseless. 

The same destructive measures were adopted here as at Chillicothe. At 
no other point did the Indians make a stand for battle. From Pickaway, 
Colonel Logan was sent out some twenty miles further, with a force to 
destroy another town of considerable importance, and where was located a. 
store from whence the savages obtained supplies of arms and ammunition. 
Other detachments were sent to distant villages, and a general waste spread, 
over the country of Indian habitation. This season of the year was pur- 
posely chosen for this destructive invasion, which was a sort of substitute 
for an investment and capture of Forts Detroit and Sandusky, the strong- 
holds behind. The crops for the winter, and next year's supply, were just 
matured, and once destroyed, could not be replaced. Great destitution and 
suffering must follow until another harvest, twelve months off; and the 
Indians would be in no condition in that time for another formidable move 
against the whites. The victorious troops, loaded with such spoils as they 
could bear away, and carrying back large numbers of horses and cattle, 
were marched on return to the rendezvous on the Ohio, and then discharged 
for their respective homes. The effect was as expected; no considerable 
body of Indians entered Kentucky for nearly two years after. 

An incident of this campaign bears a tinge of romance. Simon Kentori 
commanded a company from Harrodstown in Logan's regiment, ^ and was in 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 448. 



A RACE FOR LIFE. 165 

the front of the fight at Pickaway, after piloting Clark's army on the entire 
Toute. Here, two years before, he had been forced to run the gauntlet amid 
the uproarious laughter and shouts of the hundreds of savages in double 
Jine, ready, each one, to assail and beat him down with club or bludgeon, 
Tiis sufferings or his death alike the subject of hilarious fun to warriors, 
women, and children. Kenton, the incarnation of an Indian hater and 
fighter, recognized his old acquaintances in front, and on familiar ground 
that brought vividly to mind the provoking reminiscences. At the head of 
his marksmen, he dashed into the thickest of the fight, dealing death to 
•every enemy in his power, thus repaying, wath usurious interest, the old 
•dues of the past. 

Many incidents of individual massacres, of thrilling dangers, and of hair- 
breadth escapes occurred from scurring bands of hostiles, some of whom 
were never absent from the country. Now and then the ludicrous would 
come in, and furnish many a joke with merry laughter among the foresters, 
in spite of serious phases. ^ A month or two after the return of Clark's troops 
to Louisville, two athletic young men, Adam and Jacob Wickersham, went 
•out to a small field they had cleared and planted the spring before, two or 
three miles from the fort on Beargrass. Filling a bag with pumpkins, Jacob 
threw it over his shoulder and got over the fence, going home. An Indian 
sprang out from concealment, and raising his tomahawk, ran up behind him, 
with the weapon uplifted. Seeing himself covered under the eye of Adam, 
and disconcerted, he dropped the tomahawk and seized Jacob around the 
body. The latter, by a sudden movement, threw the bag and pumpkins 
across the Indian's neck, jerked loose, and ran for life. The red man re- 
leased himself from the troublesome bag, seized his gun, and fired at the 
swift-footed Jacob, but missed. Another Indian gave attention to Adam, in 
the hope to capture, him. The latter was on the inside of the fence; the 
former, outside. Now began a race for life, each eyeing the other, and each 
maneuvering, with the fence between. The white was the fleetest; and 
gaining a distance in advance, sprang over the fence and darted through 
the brush in front of the Indian. Turning down a ravine, he leaped the 
Iiuge body of a fallen tree in his way. The Indian followed; but not active 
■enough to leap over the tree, he hurled his tomahawk, with the pole foremost, 
and planted a stinging blow on Adam's back, leaving a blood-red spot. The 
report of the gun brought a dozen men rapidly out from the fort, in time to 
save their comrades, but too late to catch the wily Indians. 

A party composed of William Bryan, Nic. Tomlin, Stephen Frank, and 
others, from Bryan's and Lexington, on their way to Mann's Salt Licks, in 
Jefferson county, for a supply of salt, camped on the bank of Kentucky 
river, where Frankfort now stands. They were here attacked by a band of 
Indians, who killed Frank and wounded Bryan and Tomlin. From this 
event, the city of Frankfort first derived its name. ^ 

I Collins, Vol. 11., p. 359. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 241- 



l66 HISTORY OF KENTUCKV. 

It was in the early months of 1780 that Alexander McConnell, of Lex- 
ington, went to the woods with a horse to bring in a deer he had killed. A 
party of five Indians coming up on it, ambushed for the return of the 
hunter. Coming in sight, the Indians fired and killed his horse, and made 
him a prisoner while he struggled to extricate himself from the fallen animal. 
The Indians proved a remarkably merry, good-natured set, leaving McCon- 
nell not only unbound by day, but with gun in hand. Feigning cheerfulness 
and showing expertness in shooting game, he seemed a favorite with them. 
Traveling thus several days, they came to the banks of the Ohio. They' 
had bound him only at night; but here he complained of the hurt from the 
buffalo thongs, and they tied him very loosely, attaching the other ends of 
the cords to the bodies of two Indians. 

1 The latter fell asleep; while McConnell, awake, planned his escape 
before crossing the Ohio. Near one of the Indians lay a knife, under the 
light of the camp fire, loosed from its sheath. To move his body would 
wake the Indians to whom he was tied. With difficulty he grasped the knife 
between his toes, and after long and stealthy effort, drew it in reach of his 
hand. The thongs were cut and the prisoner loosed. What next? His 
work was only well begun. To leave his captors alive, was to risk being 
recaptured, with death his fate. To attempt to destroy the Indians with the 
knife, was to risk the waking of the balance on killing one. The guns of 
the sleeping men were stacked near by. These he quietly moved to a place 
of concealment in the brush, except two. Returning, he took a rifle in each 
hand, rested the muzzles on a log, pointed one at the head of an Indian, 
and the other at the heart of another, pulled the triggers, and fired simul- 
taneously. Both were killed, and the others sprang up out of their slumbers 
in dazed confusion. McConnell sped to the hidden guns. With one, he 
fired at two Indians in line, killing one and wounding the other, who, with 
the fifth man, disappeared in the woods. Selecting his own rifle from the 
guns, McConnell made his way to Lexington again. 

Mrs. Dunlap, of Fayette, who had been several months a prisoner among 
the Indians on Mad river, made her escape and returned to Lexington soon 
after this adventure. She reported that the survivor returned to his tribe 
with a lamentable story. He related that a fine young hunter was captured 
by his party near Lexington and brought to the Ohio river; that while in 
camp there, a body of white men had fallen upon them suddenly at night, 
and killed all his companions, together with the poor prisoner, who lay 
bound hand and feet, unable to escape or resist. 

A party from Harrodsburg, going toward Logan's fort, were fired upon, 
and two of them very badly wounded. One reached the fort, and reported 
the other to have laid down in the cane, too severely hurt to go further, 
their companions having fled. Logan at once called together a number of 
his men, and repaired to the assistance of the unfortunate man, whom they 

I McClung's Sketches. 



WILLIAM MONTGOMERY KILLED. 167 

found alive, but helpless. No time was to be lost, for the Indian signs were 
around. Having no suitable conveyance, he was placed on Logan's back, 
who carried him thus to his own home. After leaving the wounded man, 
as they were returning, the Indians fired on them, and wounded another 
man. They were beaten off, when Logan took on his shoulders the last 
one wounded, and bore him safely into the fort. 

By this time Colonel Logan had moved his mother and a sister, together 
with a numerous family connection, to selected lands in the vicinity of St. 
Asaph's. Among these were William Montgomery, his wife's father, with 
his family, and son-in-law, Joseph Russell, and his family. They came out 
from Virginia late in 1779, and took refuge in the fort, where they remained 
a few months. Apprehending little danger, at the first opening of spring, 
the elder Montgomery, with his sons, William, John, Thomas, and Robert, 
and his son-in-law, Russell, moved out into four cabins they had built twelve 
miles south-west of the fort, on the headwaters of Green river. 

1 In March they were attacked by savages. Mrs. Montgomery was at 
the fort, with her youngest child. Flora, and Thomas and Robert were absent 
scouting. The others of the families, old and young, were at home, with 
some slaves owned among them. At night, the Indians surrounded the 
cabins, which were built close to each other in a square, and lay in wait 
until morning light. The elder Montgomery, followed by a negro boy, arose 
and stepped outside the cabin door, when they were suddenly fired on, and 
both killed. The daughter Jane, afterward the wife of Colonel William 
Casey, of Adair county, sprang forward and shut the door, and called for 
the gun of her absent brother, Thomas. Betsey, a twelve-year-old sister, 
clambered out the chimney, which was built low, and ran for Pettit's station, 
over two miles distant. An Indian pursued her some distance, but the fleet- 
footed girl outran him, and reached Pettit's. A messenger immediately was 
dispatched from here to Logan's for help. 

William Montgomery, Jr., occupying an adjacent cabin, barricaded his 
cabin door, and directed an apprenticed boy living with him to support the 
barricades. Then grasping his rifle, he fired twice at the Indians, killing 
one and wounding another. His brother John, yet in bed, was shot through 
a crack, as he attempted to rise up, and mortally wounded, in another cabin. 
His door was then forced open, and his wife made prisoner. Russell, 
the brother-in-law, escaped from his cabin, and his wife, three children, and 
a servant-girl were made prisoners. The savages then retreated, bearing off 
their captives and the man wounded by William. They had not long started, 
when the Indian who had pursued Betsey returned and mounted a log in 
front of William's cabin; Montgomery fired through an opening in the log 
walls, and shot him dead. 

On arrival of the messenger at the fort, Logan gave a few loud blasts 
with his horn, the signal of alarm, and in a few minutes a dozen or more 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 472. 



1 68 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

mounted foresters, with rifles in hand, came in from the neighboring cabins. 
Under Logan's lead, they galloped to the assaulted cabins, and there took 
the trail. Pursuing rapidly, and aided by signs which Mrs. Russell had 
presence of mind to make with broken twigs and pieces of a handkerchief 
broken off and dropped, they first came upon the negro girl, who had been 
tomahawked, scalped, and left for dead. She had revived, and on hearing 
the voice of Logan, sprang up, and joyfully exclaimed, ^' Bless God, it's 
Massa Ben!'' She afterward recovered. 

A few minutes after, they came in sight of the savages, when Logan 
ordered a charge with a shout, so as to give the Indians no time to massacre 
and scalp the prisoners. They fled with precipitancy, leaving their wounded 
comrade to the mercy of the whites. A daughter of Mrs. Russell, twelve 
years old, spying Logan in front, clapped her hands, and like the negro, 
cried out, "6>, there's Uncle Ben!" when the savage in charge struck the 
innocent child dead with his 'tomahawk. The remainder of the prisoners 
were recaptured without injury. Encumbered with these, and with the 
main object of pursuit accomplished, the rescuers returned, and reached 
their cabins in safety before nightfall. 

In October of this year, Daniel Boone and Edward, his brother, were 
returning from Blue Lick with a supply of salt, when they were fired on by 
concealed Indians near Grassy Lick, Bourbon county. Edward fell dead 
by his side, and the scalping knife was applied within Boone's sight, as he 
ran for his own life into the woods. ^ The pursuing Indians put a dog on 
the trail of the retreating man, which followed him some miles, greatly to 
his annoyance. Finding that safety required, Boone halted until the dog 
came within sight and range, when he shot it, and made his escape. From 
Bryan's, Lexington, and Strode's stations, he hastily summoned a troop of 
sixty, under Captain Charles Gatliffe and James Ray, who went in pursuit 
of the Indians. Passing through the eastern part of Mason county, they 
followed the trail to a point where it crossed the Ohio river below the mouth 
of Cabin creek, when they abandoned it and returned home. 

Strode's station, two miles from the present Winchester, was this year 
assailed by a considerable body of Indians ; but after some fighting, without 
serious or decisive results, they withdrew to other parts. 

The following characteristic tradition of Boone^ was often told by James 
Wade, an old acquaintance, and a well-known pioneer of Bath county, in 
years gone by: In passing alone, as he often did, in 1780, from Boonesboro 
to Upper Blue Lick, Boone diverged eastward of the direct route down Slate 
creek. Fresh signs of Indians near Gilmore's station, twelve miles east of 
Mt. Sterling, caused him to move very secretively. Passing over several 
miles of level forest, afterward Judge Ewing's, two miles south of Owings- 
ville, he reached the brow of a gentle slope extending to Slate creek, and 
halted' to quench his thirst at a spring. A bullet whistled near, and scaled 

I Collins. Vol. II., p. 562. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 49. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT AT ELIZABETHTOWN. 1 69 

a piece of bark from the tree by the spring. Bounding rapidly down the 
slope to the creek, he swam to the opposite bank, and disappearing in a 
thick cane-brake, parted his way through the brush down the creek, a hun- 
dred yards. The Indians also had gone down the creek, and were cautiously 
advancing toward it, as though suspicious that the hunter had treed, and was 
■watching for his victim. Boone aimed to kill both at a shot, and leveling 
Jiis rifle on one, waited for the other to come in line. He did so, and Boone 
fired, the ball passing through the head of one, and lodging in the shoulder 
•of the other. The wounded Indian dropped his gun, and with a yell of 
pain and fright, darted off Recrossing, Boone selected the best of the 
Indians' guns, and threw the other into the water, and made his way to 
Blue Lick. 

^The first settlements in Hardin county were made in the fall and winter 
•of 1780. Thomas Helm, Andrew Hynes, and Samuel Haycraft settled where 
is now the site of Elizabethtown, and built three forts with block-houses, 
about one mile from each other. The site of that built by Captain Thomas 
Helm was the same on which was built afterward the residence of the late 
•Governor John L. Helm. Haycraft's was on the hill above the cave spring, 
while Colonel Hynes' occupied the other side of the triangle. There is 
record of no other settlements between Louisville and Green river in that 
day. Of those who came in the colony with Haycraft, were Jacob Vanmeter 
and wife, thirteen sons, daughters, and sons-in-law, with children, besides a 
-considerable family of slaves. Most of these opened farms in Severn's val- 
ley. Colonel Nicholas Miller, Judge John Virtues, Miles Hart, with others 
followed. Among the earliest comers was Christopher Bush, of German 
descent, who reared a large family of sons and daughters. Of the latter, 
one married Thomas Lincoln, an excellent carpenter, and father of the late 
president, Abraham Lincoln, who was the son of a former wife. The second 
wife was notedly a good woman, and had much to do with the early training 
of her step-son. 

As a good specimen of the pioneer boy, it is worthy of mention that, 
on Christmas day, 1780, Benjamin Helm, fourteen years old, walked bare- 
footed to Louisville for some food supplies, a distance of forty miles. 

This year stations were also first established in Logan county, one at 
Maulding's, on Red river, one at Russellville, and one on Whippoorwill 
creek. Davis' and Kilgore's came shortly after, the latter soon attacked 
and broken up by Indians. It is most probable that these settlements on the 
fine prairies, or barrens, of that region were induced by the passing through 
in 1779-80 of the survey party of Dr. Walker, of Virginia, who was appointed 
by that State, to act in conjunction with a commissioner of North Carolina, 
to run and fix the boundary line between the two — the same line that now 
separates Kentucky and Tennessee. Colonel Richard Henderson was the 
•commissioner for North Carolina. The boundary line of the two States, 

I Collins, Vol. II., pp. 307-8. 



I 7© HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, had never been traced farther than 
the Alleghany mountains, and serious inconveniences and disputes arose as 
to jurisdiction and title among the settlers westward of that terminus. The 
commissioners, with their attendants and apparatus, met by appointment, 
and began the location of the Hne. But soon one, or both, making observa- 
tions under State prepossessions or inaccurate instruments, they soon dis- 
agreed in the result ; and each adhering to his own opinion, they deviated,, 
until they crossed each other's lines, and became irreconcilably at variance. 
Each continued his line to the top of Cumberland mountains, yet were 
widely apart, when Colonel Henderson abandoned the survey. Dr. Walker 
pursued his course, and marked his line to the Tennessee river. He de- 
scended this by water, and, on observation, ascertained that the line of 
latitude would strike the Mississippi, not the Ohio, river. This only increased 
confusion and discontent, and the boundary was left undefined until years 
after, as we shall note in time. ^ 

About the ist of November, Kentucky was divided into three parts, each 
of which composed a new county, as follows : 

"All that part of the aforesaid county on the south side the Kentucky 
river, which lies west and north of a line beginning at the mouth of Benson 
creek, and running up the same and its main fork to the head, thence south 
to the nearest waters of Hammon's creek, and down the same to its junction 
with the Ohio, to be cdXXt^ Jefferson county. 

"All that part of the said county of Kentucky which lies north of a line 
beginning at the mouth of the Kentucky river, and up the same, and its 
middle forks to the head, and thence south-east to the Washington line, to 
be called Fayette county. 

' ' And all the residue of said county of Kentucky to be called Lincobt 
county. ^^ 2 

Among the notable men who appear in Kentucky history this year was 
John Fitch, the inventor of the first steam passenger boat known in the 
world. His occupation was that of surveyor, and he was descending the 
Ohio in boats, with a party conveying cattle and horses to Kentucky, when, 
at the mouth of Big Sandy, they were fired on by Indians, who wounded 
two of the crew, besides killing and wounding some seventeen of the ani- 
mals. It is barely proper here to mention Fitch's famed and successful 
experiment with his first steamer, on Delaware river; the failure of timid 
capitalists to support his enterprise ; his retirement to Bardstown, Kentucky, 
in poverty and disappointment, and his last years of residence, and final 
death, at the home of Dr. McCoun, of that place. 

A sad mishap befell Daniel Boone at this period. Desiring to avail 
himself of the benefits of the new land provision, he converted the main part 
of his possessions into continental currency, with which he purposed buying 
land warrants for entry of land. With about twenty thousand dollars of this 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 113. 2 Marshall, Vol. I., p. iii. 



BOONE S LOSS AND FINAL ACQUITTAL. 171 

depreciated money of his own, and considerable amounts entrusted to him 
by friends, he started to Virginia to make the outlay. On the way, the 
ingenuous and confiding old pioneer was robbed of the whole amount. 
Boone returned to Kentucky penniless and depressed ; but suffering far more 
intensely from the chagrin of losing thus the money of friends entrusted to 
him than from his own pecuniary loss. 

There was deep sympathy for the unfortunate veteran, whom all revered; 
yet some seemed ready in their resentment to cast unworthy reflections on 
him, and these touched profoundly the sensitive nature of Boone's integrity 
and manly pride. 

Of the men who had entrusted more largely their money to Boone were 
Captain James Estill, Samuel Estill, Nathaniel Hart, Esq., John Boyle, the 
father of Chief Justice Boyle, and their neighbors. Boone set out for Will- 
iamsburg, Virginia, by the Wilderness road, then also known as Boone's 
old trace. He was intercepted and robbed by the Indians, or by renegade 
whites disguised as Indians, who infested the road, while passing through 
the mountainous region, of all his own and the money which he held for 
others. It was natural that complaints should be heard from the suffering 
and uncharitable; but after a full hearing and review of the facts, Boone 
was honorably acquitted of all blame, by Samuel Estill, in a deposition yet on 
file in the Madison Circuit Court, and by Captain Hart in a letter to Colonel 
Thomas Hart, formerly of Lexington, Kentucky. 

Stephen Trigg and John Todd were this year elected members of the 
House of Burgesses of Virginia, for the county of Kentucky. 

In February, 1780, Captain James Estill cut the initials of his name on a 
hackberry tree, on Little Muddy creek, in Madison county, and completed 
a cabin in that month previous to moving thence from Boonesborough. We 
are told that it took eight or ten days to build the cabin, and that Estill's 
station was then erected at the same place. This station was surrounded 
by large fields of corn, wheat, and other produce of agriculture. It soon 
became a place of importance, and for many years was the point of most 
danger in East Kentucky. Among the settlers known to have been there in 
1780 were Green Clay, James Estill, Samuel Estill, Peter Hackett, Thomas 
Warren, David Lynch, James Miller, Thomas Miller, Adam Caperton, and 
others. 

In the same year, George Boone, a brother of Daniel, founded a station 
in Madison county, about six miles north of Richmond, on the present turn- 
pike leading to Lexington. The adjoining stations of Stephen Hancock, 
David Crews, and John Tanner were shortly afterward established, and 
became attractive points for settlers locating in that part of the State. The 
stations of Estill, Boone, Crews, Hancock, and Tanner contributed more to 
the settlement of Kentucky than was done by the old fort at Boonesborough, 
which was rather a rallying point for settlers distributing over the State at 
large. 



172 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The subsequent settlements in Clay, Estill, and other counties toward 
Cumberland Gap, in Eastern Kentucky, were mainly offshoots from these 
early settlements in Madison county. These early stations were long the 
objects of Indian jealousy and hatred; and in defense of them were lost the 
lives of Captain Nathaniel Hart, Captain John Kennedy, Colonel Richard 
Callaway, Captain James Estill, Lieutenant John South, Captain Christopher 
Irvine, and Richard Hinds. 

The Estills were early pioneers. They came to Boonesborough in 1776, 
and shared in the vicissitudes of forest life, until the death of Captain James 
Estill, in 1 78 1. They gallantly fought at the battle of Point Pleasant in 
1774. Colonel Samuel Estill lived through the perilous period of Indian 
hostilities and the last war with England in 1815. He left Kentucky in 
1833 to reside with Mrs. Annie Day, a daughter, in Tennessee, where, in 
1837, he died at the age of eighty-two years, and his remains were buried on 
the Cumberland mountain. He was a man of large and portly person, and 
in his later years weighed four hundred and twelve pounds. Making pro- 
fession of religion toward the close of life, and desiring to be baptized by 
immersion, he was seated in his large arm-chair, and four men called to 
assist the officiating minister, Elder Thomas Ballew, in the ordinance. 



CONDITION OF THE STATE IN I 78 1, 



173 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

(•781.) 



■ Clark mans a fortified boat, to patrol | 

'the Ohio from the Falls to the Licking 

"river. 

J With two companions, he leaves Fort 

jjefterson for Harrodstown and the Falls. 

Their disguise and narrow escapes. 

Reaches a fort on Red river, Logan 
"county. 

* Finds the land-hunger epidemic at Har- 
ijrodsburg. 

r Closes the land office, with Surveyor 
May's acquiescence. 

Enlists the men. 

Estills and Dutchmen ambushed by In- 
dians. 

Captain Estill wounded. 

A Dutchman kills his Indian. 

General Clark's designs on Detroit. 

Visits the capital of Virginia to organ- 
ize a force. 

Many difficulties intervene to defeat the 
plans. 

Bloody defeat of Loughrey on the Ohio. 

A blow to Clark's designs on Detroit. 

Captain Linn killed. 

Indian raids around Louisville. 

Captain Whittaker's fight near the Falls. 

Squire Boone abandons his station, near 
Shelbyville, from danger of Indians. 

His party disastrously cut up while 
moving to the Beargrass settlement. 

Colonel Floyd pursues the Indians, and 
is defeated. 

Incident of Wells saving the life of 
Floyd. 

Mrs. Woods attacked in her house. 



Her daughter chops an Indian's head 
off while a negro man holds him down. 

Bryan and Hagan attacked while hunt- 
ing on Elkhorn. 

William Bryan killed. 

Indian raid on McAfee's station. 

Sharp fighting. 

McGary relieves the station with a party 
from Harrodstown. 

Raids in Hardin county. 

Peter Kennedy pursues. 

His skill as an Indian fighter, and fleet- 
ness of foot. 

Taken prisoner. 

His escape. 

Small proportion of females in Ken- 
tucky hitherto. 

Large immigration of same after 1780. 

Custom for all to marry. 

Habits and equipments of the domi- 
ciles. 

Manner of living. 

Neighborly accommodations. 

The abundance sustained the settlers 
in their wars with the wilderness and the 
savages. 

Contrast with the present. 

The heroic men and women suited for 
the times. 

The religious privileges and worship of 
the pioneers. 

Materials for clothing, 

Virginia Legislature scales down the 
value of paper money to that of specie. 

First court in Kentucky at Harrods- 
burg, in 1781. 



The invasion of Clark's army and the destruction of the towns and fields 
of the Miami tribes in Ohio secured Kentucky from the annual aggressive 
operations on the part of these hostiles, on any extended scale, during the 
year 1781. The general-in-chief had also better organized and varied the sys- 



174 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tern of defense against such dangers, one of the more novel features of 
which was the fitting up of an armed row-galley, with breastwork protec- 
tions on the sides, for the patrol of the Ohio river from the falls to the mouth 
of Licking. ^ This was built at Louisville, and was intended as a floating ; 
fortification — not very formidable to those accustomed to the implements 
and usages of civilized warfare, but as effective against Indian weapons and ] 
methods as the stockade forts on land. It proved to have a good effect in 
deterring the savages — whether from alarm at the novelty or fear of its armed ! 
crew, it mattered little — and, indeed, was said to have stopped a threatened I 
invasion of magnitude The short career of this impromptu naval structure ' 
and its abandonment were mainly caused by the aversion of the militia for- [ 
esters to the new element of service, for which they had no liking, and by 
the reduction of the regular force. The galley was finally stranded at the 
mouth of Beargrass, and the obstruction is said to have produced the forma- 
tion of the Point. 

Spies and scouting parties were distributed and sent to important parts of 
the country, and headquarters kept well advised of all that was going on. 
A characteristic incident is related of Clark: After the establishment of I 
Fort Jefferson on the Mississippi, in company with Josiah Harlan and 
Harmar Consilla, he proceeded on foot to Harrodsburg. The perils of the 
way were great. They painted and decked themselves like Indians, and 
advanced as far as Tennessee river without interruption. 2 They found a 
flood tide of water, and Indians of the Chickasaw tribe hunting on both 
sides of the river. They constructed a raft tied together with grapevines, 
on which they placed their guns and clothes, plunged into the foaming cur- 
rent, and swam over. Under cover of the high banks, they had reached 
nearly the middle of the stream, when the enemy discov-ered them, and 
quickly exchanged whoops of intelligence. A deep creek put in on the 
opposite side, and the white party, by drifting and swimming, landed below, 
so as to put this between themselves and the Indians on that side, and thus 
escaped. In approaching a fort on Red river, in Logan county, they were 
mistaken for Indians by the garrison, and only the loud calling of his own 
name by Clark saved them from the deadly bullets of their friends. On 
their route, they met a party of forty emigrants almost starved for food. 
Their unpracticed hunters failed to kill the buffalo, of which there were 
plenty on the prairies here, from want of a knowledge of the fact that the 
hump on the back requires a different aim to hit the heart from that of other 
animals. Clark and companions soon set them right on this point, and 
killed for them a supply for all present wants. They ran with the herd, 
and fired and loaded as they went, until they had killed fourteen. The 
strangers, themselves expert hunters of other game, were amazed to witness 
such results, in contrast with their own failure. As in many other cases, the 
hunter's long experience only sufificed. 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 120. 2 Butler, p. 115. 



THE AMBUSCADE OF THE INDIANS. 



175 




COLONEL SAMUEL ESTILL. 



Reaching Harrodsburg, he found the people ahnost crazed over the land 
excitement. Every one was trying to secure lands, and nothing else was 
talked of, or would be considered. The office 
of Mr. May, the surveyor, was besieged by 
crowding applicants, and little attention 
was paid to Clark's authority. He pro- 
posed to May to close up his office, that 
attention might be given to the defense of 
the country. The latter replied that he 
had no authority to do this; but if the 
general would issue an order, he would 
be the first to obey it. Accordingly, such 
an order was placed on the door of the 
surveyor's office, notifying that the office 
was closed by order of Brigadier-General 
Clark until after an expedition could be car- 
ried on against the enemy. The result was, 
the enlistment of the forces that were led against the Pickaway towns. 

During this year, a company of Dutchmen came into Madison county to 
select a suitable place for a settlement. ^ Ripperdan, Boyers, and several 
others went over to Estill's station, about two miles above the mouth of 
Little Muddy creek, to ask the aid of Captain James Estill and his brother, 
Sam Estill, a noted forester and Indian fighter. As they rode along a path 
through the cane, they passed a large oak tree which had lately fallen near 
the trace. Behind its dry red leaves a band of Indians were ambushed, and 
they had cut and placed upright in a crack in the tree some cane, the better 
to conceal them. Sam Estill's quick and trained eye discerned a moccasin 
"behind the tree, and he at once raised his rifle and fired at the spot, then threw 
himself off his horse on the opposite side, and shouted, "Indians!" The 
savages fired also, one shot breaking the right arm of Captain Estill, whose 
horse wheeled and galloped back to the station. The rider, not able to 
check him, with his gun in the remaining hand, seized the bridle in his teeth, 
but could not control him. A big savage, painted and feathered in horrid 
style, sprang out and endeavored to tomahawk Ripperdan, all having dis- 
mounted. The Dutchman, not much used to Indian fighting, and sorely 
frightened, called to Sam Estill to shoot the Indian. Estill had just emptied 
his gun at the savages, and cried out, "Why don't you shoot him, d — n you; 
your gun's loaded?" Reassured by Estill's voice and command, Ripperdan 
jerked his gun to his shoulder and fired, in a few feet of the enemy. The 
Indian dropped his gun, gave a shriek like a wounded bear, and fell dead. 
This checked the attack, and the savages retreated through the cane. Sam 
Estill, believing that his brother had galloped off to save himself, when he 
should have remained through the fight, was indignant at what he deemed a 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 527. 



176 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

cowardly desertion. But on reaching home and learning the facts of Cap- 
tain Estill's misfortune, he held him in higher esteem than ever before. 
That broken arm, still weak and partially disabled, cost him his life while 
bravely battling for his country and people, a year after. 

The project of an expedition for the capture of Detroit, as a necessary 
strategic move to hold in control the Miami tribes in Ohio, and to thus com- 
plete the conquest of the North-west, was yet in the mind of General Clark, 
ever vigilant and fertile in expedients for the safety and advancement of the 
settlers of the Great West. ^ In December of 1780, he repaired to the cap- 
ital of Virginia and urged the Government there to aid him in raising and 
equipping a force of two thousand men to execute this long-cherished de- 
sign. The plan was approved by the State authorities; but before the 
necessary arrangements could be completed, a British force sent out from 
New York, under Arnold, carried hostilities into the heart of Virginia. 
Clark took a temporary command under Baron Steuben, and participated in 
the active operations against the traitor general. 

After several months spent in preparing the force designed to be sent 
against Detroit, the several corps organized for the purpose were ordered to 
rendezvous in March, 1781, at Louisville; but unexpected and insuperable 
difficulties intervened to postpone, and finally to defeat, the execution of the 
project, greatly to the chagrin of Clark. He had set his heart on this final 
blow to British influence in the North-west. In the exigencies of the day, 
when Virginia was taxed to the extremest limit of her resources to sustain 
her arms against the English forces east of the Alleghanies, but a single 
mishap might prove the prelude to the catastrophe of failure. The incident 
of such a mishap was not wanting. 

2 Colonel Archibald Loughrey, of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, 
at the instance of General Clark, raised a force of one hundred and twenty 
men to join in the Detroit expedition, with which he was to meet Clark's, 
army at Fort Henry, now Wheeling, and proceed in body to the Falls ; but 
Clark's troops becoming restless, and some of them deserting, he hastened 
on down the river. Loughrey followed after, with various delays. He sent. 
Captain Shannon ahead in a boat, with four men, to overtake the main body 
and obtain some supplies needed. Captain Shannon and party were capt- 
ured by the Indians, and with them a letter to Clark detailing Loughrey's: 
situation. This intelligence was confirmed by some deserters, and the In- 
dians collected below the mouth of Little Miami river, determined to destroy 
the Pennsylvania contingent if possible. The five prisoners were placed in 
a conspicuous position on the Indiana shore, near what was afterward called. 
Loughrey's island, a few miles above Rising Sun, and opposite Belleview 
landing, on the Kentucky side, and made to act the part of a decoy, upon, 
forfeit of their lives if they refused. The Indians concealed themselves near 

1 Clark's Memoirs; Collins, Vol. II., p. 139. 

2 Collins, Vol. TI., p. 5(. 



CAPTAIN LOUGHREY MASSACRED. 177 

by; but before reaching this point, and about opposite the mouth of Lough- 
rey's creek, two miles below Aurora, one of the boats landed on the Ken- 
tucky side, and Captain Wilham Campbell's men went on shore and began 
cooking some buffalo meat. While around the fires, and the rest of the 
troops yet bringing their horses ashore to graze them, coming to join them 
in the meal, they were assailed by a volley of rifle-balls from the overhanging 
Kentucky bank, covered with large trees, behind which the Indians proved 
to be sheltered in great force. The volunteers defended themselves as long 
as their ammunition lasted, and when this gave out, attempted to escape by 
their boats. These sluggish crafts were slow to reach the current over the 
shallow water near the shore, the Indians firing into them continually. When 
they were carried out into the current, another large body of Indians from 
the Indiana shore waded out on the sandbar, and fired into them from an- 
other quarter. Without ammunition, further resistance was vain, and they 
were compelled to surrender. The inhuman savages fell upon and massa- 
cred Colonel Loughrey and several other prisoners, before the chief arrived 
and put a stop to the butchery. Over three hundred warriors were engaged 
in the attack ; and of the Pennsylvanians, forty-two were killed in the fight 
or massacred after, and sixty-four made prisoners. Most of the latter were 
ransomed, two years after, by British officers, and exchanged for soldiers 
taken in the Revolutionary war. This blow, struck upon the rear of General 
Clark's forces, was most discouraging to the intended expedition to Detroit; 
and doubtless had much to do in defeating its execution altogether. 

The settlements from Beargrass to Squire Boone's station, on Clear creek, 
were much harassed by the incursive raiding of quite a body of Indians, 
early in this year. They entered about the vicinity of the Falls, at several 
places, and in several parties, and ambushing the paths frequented, killed 
Colonel William Linn, Captains Tipton and Chapman, and one other citizen. 
Captain Aquila Whittaker, with fifteen men, pursued and traced them to 
the foot of the Falls, near Shippingsport. Supposing them to have crossed, 
he embarked his men in canoes to cross over and continue the pursuit. As 
they were in the act of starting over, the Indians, who were concealed in 
the rear, on the bank, fired upon them, and killed or wounded nine of the 
party, or more than half. Undaunted by this fearful loss. Captain Whittaker 
gallantly ordered his men to land again, attacked the savages, and put them 
to flight, killing over twenty of them. The survivors, five or six in number, 
escaped by flight in the undergrowth into the swamps south of Louisville. 
A personal rencounter took place in the skirmish between Captain Whittaker 
and an Indian chief. Each one from his sapling eyed the other; both raised 
their rifles for work, and both fired simultaneously. The Indian's bullet cut 
the lock of hair off of Captain Whittaker's left temple, while his went crash- 
ing through the chief's mouth and head. In this Indian style of fighting, 
which the whites were compelled to adopt, these man-to-man combats were 
frequent and fatal. 



178 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

^ Among the most intelligent and prominent pioneers of Kentucky, Col- 
onel Aquila Whittaker may justly be ranked. He was born in Baltimore 
county, Maryland, in the year 1755, and came to Kentucky in an exploring 
company in the year 1775. He was a man of medium size, of great nerve, 
strength, and energy, and fond of adventures. He was a bold and active 
leader, and took part in many dangerous and thrilling scenes, perilous inci- 
dents and trials, in the exploration and settlement of Kentucky. In 1779, 
he moved his family to Kentucky, and settled at Sullivan's station, near 
the Falls of Ohio. In 1783, he moved to the neighborhood of Shelbyville, 
where he lived for many years. At this place, his brother, John Whittaker, 
was killed by the Indians, near the present town boundary, while clearing 
up the ground for cultivation. In the important military and aggressive 
movements made by General George Rogers Clark, in and from Kentucky, 
he was a lieutenant and captain, and ranked high as a brave, efficient, and 
intrepid officer, adding greatly, by his ability as an officer and soldier, to 
the achievement of the great success attending these movements. Prior 
to 1794, he was captain of the different parties from Boone's, Wells', and 
Whittaker's stations, and other stations (now Shelby and Jefferson), in pur- 
suit of marauding bands of Indians, and many were the rencounters with 
them while engaged in their descent and forages on the settlements in that 
section of the State. 

So troublesome had the Indians become in the section of country in the 
rear of Louisville, that Squire Boone determined to abandon his station on 
Clear creek, in Shelby county, and to remove all the families and their 
household goods and stock, for protection, to the stronger forts on Bear- 
grass. As the men were moving, encumbered with families and property, 
they were attacked by a party of Indians and dispersed in much confusion 
through the forest, with considerable loss, near Long Run. Colonel John 
Floyd, hearing of the disaster, hastily collected about thirty men, and pur- 
sued the Indians, whom he supposed on the retreat. He advanced with 
his usual caution, dividing his force into two parties, one led by Captain 
Holden, and the other by himself. This prudence did not avail; for he was 
surprised by an ambuscade of Indians, estimated to be two hundred in 
number, whose deadly fire killed and wounded half the whites, or more; the 
latter stubbornly holding their ground until overpowered and attacked with 
tomahawks, when they were forced to retreat. Some ten of the Indians 
were killed. While Colonel Floyd was retreating on foot, almost exhausted 
and closely pursued by the Indians, Captain Samuel Wells, who yet retained 
his horse, dismounted and forced him into the saddle, and ran by his side to 
protect and support him. The magnanimity of this action was enhanced by 
the fact that the two men had been estranged in friendship, and were person- 
ally hostile to each other. This was now canceled, and the two men were 
ever after the warmest of friends. These raids were very harassing and 

I Allen's History of Kentucky. 



ATTACK ON MRS. WOODS CABIN. 1 79 

fatal to this section during 1781, and over one hundred Uves of men, women, 
and children were sacrificed to savage atrocity, within a radius of thirty 
miles of Louisville, in less than a year. Near the Shelbyville turnpike, and 
sixteen miles from Louisville, on the land of Mr. Abner J. Smith, stands a 
marble monument, erected by order of the Legislature of Kentucky, with 
the following inscription: "Erected by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 
to the memory of fourteen brave soldiers, who fell, under Captain John 
Floyd, in a contest with the Indians, in 1783." 

An incident, illustrative of the perils which fell to every member of the 
household of the pioneer, occurred near Crab Orchard, in Lincoln county : 
One morning Mr. Woods left his family, consisting of a wife, a daughter not 
yet grown, and a lame negro man, and rode off to the station, near by, for 
the day. Mrs. Woods, while out a short distance from the cabin, spied 
several Indians approaching, and screaming loudly to give the alarm, ran 
into the house and attempted to shut the door. One Indian in advance, 
however, pressed inside before the door could be closed and fastened. He 
was instantly seized by the lame negro, who threw and held him on the floor. 
Mrs. Woods busy at the door to keep it fastened, the negro called to the 
girl to seize the ax and kill the savage while he held him. This, after some 
•effort, she did with a well-directed blow on the head. The other Indians 
were endeavoring to force the door, when the plucky black man, elated with 
his prowess, called out, ''Missus, jes' let the red devils in, one at a time, and 
we'll kill 'em fast as dey come!" But there was no need of the doubtful 
experiment. The cabin was in easy hearing of the station, and the men 
from the latter, coming promptly to the rescue, fired on the Indians and 
tilled one more of their number, when the remainder sought safety in flight. 

Bryan's station was much infested with raiding Indians this season, and 
the people were compelled to hunt in bodies of ten or twenty. In May, 
"William Bryan, the brother-in-law of Boone, left the fort with twenty men 
for a hunt on Elkhorn. 1 Reaching the ground, he divided his men into two 
parties of ten each, one led by James Hogan, to hunt on both sides of the 
creek. They were to meet at night and camp at the mouth of Cane Run. 
Hogan had not gone far before a loud voice, in pretty good English, called 
•out, "Stop, boys!" Looking back, they saw several Indians in hot pur- 
suit, when they put spurs to their horses and dashed off through the woods, 
the enemy pursuing. A led horse, for packing game, was left behind, with 
a bell on, and fell into the hands of the Indians. After such a disorderly 
letreat, and out of sight of the Indians, it occurred to the party that they 
anight venture to give the savages a check, or feel of their numbers. They 
'crossed Elkhorn to unite the forces, that they might more safely reach the 
fort in case of necessity. They then dismounted and awaited the enemy. 
Night coming on, the Indians were heard coming, when presently a single 
warrior descended the bank and began to wade through the stream. When 

I McClung's Sketches. 



l8o HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

about the middle, Hogan fired on him, and he fell, splashing the water, after 
which all became quiet again. This stopped pursuit, and Hogan's party re- 
turned to the fort. To apprize Bryan of danger, they left the fort at daylight 
next morning, and rode rapidly down toward the mouth of Cane Run. 
When near where they supposed Bryan's camp to be, they heard the reports 
of many guns, and conjectured that Bryan's party had fallen in with a herd of 
buffaloes, and hastened their steps to take part in the sport. The morning 
being misty, as they approached the banks of the stream they came upon 
the Indians, comfortably seated around and preparing their pipes. Both 
combatants were startled; but recovering quickly, both sheltered themselves 
behind covers, and the action opened briskly. For half an hour the Indians 
maintained their position, but a flank move put them on the retreat, which 
ended in a rout and sharp loss. Of the whites, one was killed and three 
wounded. 

It happened that Bryan's party had camped at the mouth of Cane Run, 
as agreed on, and were unable to account for Hogan's absence. About day- 
light, they heard the familiar sound of the bell worn by the pack horse 
captured, and Bryan and Grant mounted their horses and went in search, as 
they supposed, of Hogan's party. They soon fell into an ambuscade, and 
were fired on by the Indians, and Bryan wounded mortally and Grant 
seriously. Both, however, kept the saddle, and rode into the station shortly^ 
after breakfast. The Indians next fell upon Bryan's camp and dispersed the 
remainder of the men, and were in the act of resting and regaling them- 
selves when Hogan came upon them. 

From McClung's Sketches we learn that early in May, 1781, McAfee- 
station, in the neighborhood of Harrodsburg, was alarmed. On the morn- 
ing of the 9th, Samuel McAfee, accompanied by another man, left the fort, 
in order to visit a small plantation in the neighborhood, and at the distance 
of three hundred yards from the gate, they were fired upon by a party of 
Indians in ambush. The man who accompanied him instantly fell, and 
McAfee attempted to regain the fort. While running rapidly for that pur- 
pose, he found himself suddenly intercepted by an Indian, who, springing 
out of the cane-brake, placed himself directly in his path. There was no 
time for compliments ; each glared upon the other for an instant in silence, 
and both raising their guns at the sarae moment pulled the triggers together. 
The Indian's rifle snapped, while McAfee's ball passed directly through the 
former's brain. Having no time to reload his gun, he sprang over the body 
of his antagonist, and continued his flight to the fort. 

When within one hundred yards of the gate, he was met by his tw^ 
brothers, Robert and James, who, at the reports of the guns, had hurried 
out to the assistance of their brother. Samuel hastily informed them of their 
danger, and exhorted them to return. James readily complied, but Robert, 
deaf to all remonstrances, declared he must have a view of the dead Indian. 
He ran on for that purpose, and, having regaled himself with that spectacle,. 



I 



ROBERT M AFEE S ADVENTURE. l8l 

-was hastily returning by the same path, when he saw five or six Indians 
between him and the fort, evidently bent upon taking him alive. All his 
activity and presence of mind were now put in requisition. He ran rapidly 
from tree to tree, endeavoring to turn their flanks and reach one of the 
gates, and, after a variety of turns and doublings in the thick woods, he 
found himself pressed by only one Indian. McAfee, hastily throwing him- 
self behind a fence, turned upon his pursuer, and compelled him to take 
shelter behind a tree. 

Both stood still for a moment, McAfee having his gun cocked, and the 
sight fixed upon the tree at the spot where he supposed the Indian would 
thrust out his head in order to have a view of his antagonist. After waiting 
a few seconds, he was gratified. The Indian slowly and cautiously exposed 
a part of his head, and began to elevate his rifle. As soon as a sufficient 
mark presented itself, McAfee shot and the Indian fell. While turning, in 
order to continue his flight, he was fired on by a party of six, which com- 
pelled him again to tree. But scarcely had he done so, when, from the 
opposite quarter, he received the fire from three more enemies, which made 
the bark fly around him and knocked up the dust about his feet. Thinking 
his post rather too hot for safety, he neglected all shelter and ran directly 
for the fort, which, in defiance of all opposition, he reached in safety, to the 
inexpressible joy of his brothers, who had despaired of his return. 

The Indians now opened a heavy fire upon the fort in their usual manner, 
but, finding every effort useless, they hastily decamped, without any loss 
beyond the two who had fallen by the hands of the brothers, and without 
having inflicted more on the garrison. Within half an hour Major McGary 
brought up a party from Harrodsburg at full gallop, and, uniting with the 
garrison, pursued the enemy with all possible activity. They soon over- 
took them, and a sharp action ensued. The Indians were routed in a few 
minutes, with the loss of six warriors left dead upon the ground and many 
others wounded, who, as usual, were borne off. The pursuit was continued 
for several miles, but, from the thickness of the woods and the extreme 
activity and address of the enemy, was not very effectual. McGary lost one 
man dead upon the spot and another mortally wounded. 

^ In 1781, a band of Indians came into Hardin county, and, after nu- 
merous depredations and killing some women and children, were pursued 
by the whites. During the pursuit, a portion of the Indians who were on 
stolen horses took a southerly direction, so as to strike the Ohio about where 
Brandenburg is now situated, while the other party, who were on foot, at- 
tempted to cross the Ohio at the mouth of Salt river. The whites pursued 
each party, the larger portion following the trail of the horses, the smaller 
the foot party. Among the latter was the hero of this sketch, Peter Ken- 
nedy. Young Kennedy was noted for his fleetness of foot, strength of body, 
and wary daring. He was selected as their leader. They pursued the 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 312. 



1 82 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Indians to within a mile of the river, the latter awaiting them in ambush. 
They were ten in number, the whites six. As they were hurried on by their 
daring leader in an effort to overtake them before they could reach the 
river, all of his comrades were shot down, and he was left to contend single- 
handed with ten fierce and savage Indians. This was an odds calculated to 
make the bravest tremble; but young Kennedy was determined to sell his life 
as dearly as possible. With a bound, he reached a tree, and awaited an op- 
portunity to wreak vengeance upon the foe. The savages, with their usual 
wariness, kept their cover; but at last one, more impatient than the remain- 
der, showed his head from behind a tree. As quick as thought, Kennedy 
buried a rifle-ball in his forehead, and instantly turned to flee; but no sooner 
did he abandon his cover than nine deadly rifles were leveled at him and 
instantly fired, and with the fire a simultaneous whoop of triumph, for the 
brave Kennedy fell pierced through the right hip with a ball. Disabled by 
the wound and unable to make further resistance, he was taken prisoner 
and immediately borne off to the Wabash, where the tribe of the victorious 
party belonged. 

The wound of Kennedy was severe, and the pain which he suffered 
from it was greatly aggravated by the rapid movement of the Indians. The 
arrival of the party was hailed with the usual demonstrations of Indian 
triumph; but Kennedy, owing to his feeble and suffering condition, was 
treated with kindness. His wound gradually healed, and, as he again found 
himself a well man, he felt an irresistible desire for freedom. He deter- 
mined to make his escape, but how to effect it was the question. In this 
state of suspense he remained for two years, well knowing that, however 
kindly the Indians might treat a prisoner when first captured, an unsuc- 
cessful attempt to escape would be followed by the infliction of death, and 
that, too, by the stake. But still Kennedy was willing to run this risk to 
regain that most inestimable of gifts — freedom. The vigilance of the Indians 
ultimately relaxed, and he seized the opportunity and made good his escape 
to this side of the Ohio. 

Hitherto Kennedy had rapidly pressed forward without rest or nourish- 
ment, for he knew the character of the savages and anticipated a rapid 
pursuit. Hungry and exhausted, he was tempted to shoot a deer which 
crossed his path, from which he cut a steak, cooked it, and had nearly 
completed his meal, when he heard the shrill crack of an Indian rifle, and 
felt that he was again wounded, but fortunately not disabled. He grasped 
his gun and bounded forward in the direction of Goodin's station, distant 
nearly thirty miles. Fortunately, he was acquainted with the localities, 
which aided him greatly in his flight. The chase soon became intensely 
exciting. The fierce whoop of the Indians was met with a shout of defiance 
from Kennedy. For a few minutes at the outset of the chase the Indians 
appeared to gain on him, but he redoubled his efforts and gradually widened 
the distance between the pursuers and himself. But there was no abatement 



t 



THE IMMIGRATION OF FEMALES. 1 83 

of effort on either side, both the pursuers and pursued putting forth all their 
energies. The yell of the savages as the distance widened became fainter 
and fainter; Kennedy had descended in safety the tall cliff on Rolling Fork, 
and found himself, as the Indians reached the summit, a mile in advance. 

Here the loud yell of the savages reverberated along the valleys of that 
stream, but, so far from dampening, infused new energy into the flight of 
Kennedy. The race continued, Kennedy still widening the distance to 
within a short distance of Goodin's station, when the Indians, in despair, 
gave up the chase. He arrived safely at the station, but in an exhausted 
state. His tale was soon told. The men in the station instantly grasped 
their rifles, and, under the direction of Kennedy, sallied forth to encounter 
the savages. The scene was now changed. The pursuers became the pur- 
sued. The Indians, exhausted by their long-continued chase, were speedily 
overtaken, and not one returned to their tribe to tell of the fruitless pursuit 
of Kennedy! Kennedy lived in Hardin to a very old age, and left a nu- 
merous and clever progeny. 

Among the topics of interest worthy of description are those relating to 
the manners and characteristics of society in these primitive times of Ken- 
tucky history. Previous to 1 781-2, the proportion of females to males in 
the country was small; painfully so. to the gallantry and devotion of the 
males. Within the last two years, great numbers of females came out tp 
the West; and with the loss of life by Indian hostilities among the men, an 
equality of the sexes was fairly established. A license to marry is said to 
have been the first process issued by the clerks of the new counties, and 
it is probably as true that they were the most numerous processes. It was 
the almost universal rule for the young men and women to marry, and at 
an early age. 

The conventional restrictions and artificial obstacles, real and imagined, 
which a falselyrfashioned civilization imposes to deter the young of both 
sexes from assuming the relations of the divinely-ordered institution of mar- 
riage, did not then exist. The husband and the wife were the complement 
and perfection of the domestic unit, on which God has ordained that society 
shall be based. The young husband and wife were helpmates for each other; 
all sufficient, because they could in simplicity adapt themselves to circum- 
stances, and live and love together, burdened with few of the cares of the 
modern elaborate household. If there were no servants, the meal was grated 
or pounded, the woods were cleared, the fields and gardens were planted, 
the wood was chopped and hauled, and all other rough work done by the 
men; while the women cooked, spun and wove, milked the cows, and did 
all the housework, and with cheerful happiness and content. If there were 
no mansion of many apartments, there were plenty and content in the log 
cabin, and these in the reach of all who had the industry to secure them. 

But few lawsuits existed at this time in Kentucky, as lands and property 
were too cheap and too much in common to be subjects of litigation or dis- 



184 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

pute. Deerskins were extensively used for dress, to compose tne hunting- 
shirt, the overalls, and the soft and pliable moccasins; while the skins of 
the bear and buffalo furnished the bed and the covering for the night. Ropes 
and strings were made of thongs cut from hides. Stores and shops were 
unknown. Wooden vessels prepared by the cooper, the turner, or the rude 
axman, were the common substitutes for table furniture. Gourds for drink- 
ing and dipping water, and larger ones for storing many articles of domestic 
use, were grown in the gardens, and boiled and scraped at maturity, until 
clean and pure for use. A tin cup or a piece of china-ware were things 
of rare luxury, and so was an iron fork. Every hunter carried a knife, 
too aptly called a scalping-knife in the hands of the white man, as well as 
the Indian. Two or three knives would usually compose the cutlery for the 
family, usually four or five members to each knife. The furniture of the 
cabin was appropriate; the table was a slab, or thick, flat timber split, and 
roughly hewn with the ax, and supported by wooden legs prepared with the 
same instrument. The ax was the principal tool of all mechanical work; 
and fortunate was the man who could count also his rifle, his augur, and 
his adze in addition. Stools made on the order of the tables supplied the 
place of chairs. The bed was on slabs laid across poles, and the latter 
supported by forks set in the ground, unless the floor was covered with pun- 
cheons ; in such case the bed was of hewn pieces, let into the sides of the 
cabin by augur-holes in the logs. The baby was not neglected. A cradle, 
much after the fashion of the sugar-trough that was made to receive the sap 
of the maple, was hewn out of half a log, of the right length, scooped on 
the flat side, and made to rock smoothly on the round outside. 

The food in these rude habitations was the richest of milk and butter, 
furnished by the luxuriant pastures of bluegrass and clover, varied with the 
rich peavine and perennial cane. The beef and pork were unsurpassed for 
tenderness and nutrition, while the forests supplied abundant meat of the 
buffalo, bear, deer, turkey, and smaller game. Corn meal and hominy were 
the staple breadstuff's, with a limited addition of wheat bread. Of vegeta- 
ble, unctuous roasting ears, pumpkins, potatoes, beans, and other garden 
products,, were usually plentiful. Wild fruits and nuts from the woods, and 
the products of the orchards now" beginning to bear, gave variety and plenty 
from these sources as well. There was little of money and less of markets. 
The surplus that one neighbor had was divided with another, and the kind- 
ness hardly thought to possess the name of merit. 

This fertility and abundance of food supply is often said to have afforded 
that assistance to the pioneers, without which they could never have main- 
tained their possession of the country against the fierce hostilities of the 
aborigines. The immense distance, and the obstacles of mountains and 
forests, would have been insuperable to the transportation of supplies enough 
to the interior to have met the wants of settlers; while the Indians would 
have intercepted the same, both by river and land. 



SKEiCH OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY. 185 

The hospitality of these times was less a merit than we might suppose; 
yet it was generous and unrestrained. It was usually an enjoyment and 
social relief, as well as protection, to both host and guest. The entertain- 
ment was rude and without ceremony, but ever hearty and genuine in its ex- 
pression. The life and men of the times are well portrayed further by Buder : 
"It would not, however, be justice to the manners and character of the present 
state of society, any more than to those of the times we are describing, to 
conclude the portrait here. Hardihood, bravery, endurance of suffering, 
and generosity were prominent features in the character of the first settlers 
of Kentucky. These qualities are attested by the whole history of their 
gallant, hardy, and magnanimous deeds in the conquest which they made of 
this lovely land, from such wily, ferocious, and formidable tribes of Indians, 
assisted by the ample resources of Great Britain. Literature and science, 
■with their train of humanizing arts, and the thousand delightful excitements 
to activity of mind which they furnish, it would be worse than folly to expect 
in these primitives of Kentucky. Government was nearly as simple as the 
impalpable policy subsisting among the Indians; the complexities of law 
were uncalled for in this condition of few wants and nearly universal means 
of gratifying them. Trade there was none, for there was nothing yet to give 
in exchange. Did any man want land? He could occupy any quantity 
that he could defend against the Indians. Did he want clothing or subsist- 
ence? His rifle would furnish any supply of either which his activity and 
his industry could command. Avarice and the love of gain had scarcely, at 
first, a temptation to develop them. What a chasm must there have existed 
to be filled by one of the fiercest and most insatiate passions of the human 
mind! Still, let it not be supposed that our early society was quite one of 
Arcadian fiction. Though politics did not distract the community with their 
■noisy dins and bitter contentions; though traffic and labor did not furnish 
their topics of strife and sources of discontent; still, there was no absence 
of rivalry, and that pursued with sufficient bitterness. They would dispute 
who was the best shot, who the most supple wrestler, the strongest man, or 
the "better man" in a fight; nor were these disputes always bloodless, and 
€ven sometimes were settled with the knife and the rifle. The female 
sex, though certainly an object of much feeling and regard, was doomed 
to endure much hardship. In fine, our frontier people were much allied to 
their contemporaries of the forest in many things more than in their com- 
plexions. To be sure, this is but a general sketch of the early mass; there 
were among them men of finer mold and superior character, who would 
have adorned any state of society; and these remarks must be severely re- 
stricted to the body of the earliest emigrants. This picture has little or no 
resemblance of Clark, of Harrod and Boone, Bullitt and Logan, Floyd, the 
Todds, Hardin, and no doubt many other noble spirits who were the lights 
and guides of their times. It was a state of society peremptorily extorting 
high physical faculties, more than mental exertions or artificial endowments." 



1 86 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

When, therefore, we learn that Boone, Harrod, and Logan were Httle 
advanced in artificial learning, let no reader be so unjust or unthinking as to 
treat their memory with contempt. Letters could have ill supplied their 
manly spirit, their vigorous frames, and, above all, their talents and tact in 
commanding the respect and confidence of a rough and fierce class of men 
while living, and which excited their sincerest regrets when dead. These 
gallant and magnanimous hunters of Kentucky will ever be sacred in the 
hearts of all lovers of brave and noble deeds, however they may have been 
adorned by the polish and beauty of learning. Charlemagne was no less the 
Emperor of the West of Europe; he was no less the master spirit of his 
time, stamping his impress on his generation, because he signed, and could 
not artificially subscribe his name. Artificial education, or the learning of 
books, is too often confounded with that higher education, consisting in the 
development of the mind, inspired by surrounding circumstances, and which- 
is open to all the children of man, whether favored by civilization or not. 

The religion of these times must necessarily have suffered amid the 
pressing privations surrounding the inhabitants. It could not have been 
greatly cultivated amid the struggles with want and battles with Indians. 
Yet the heart of the hardiest male, much more of the female, must often have 
melted with reverence for that Being, whose secret and invisible providence 
watched over their weakness, and saved them from the perils of the rifle and 
the tomahawk. True, many fell victims to the Indians; many were burned 
and tortured, with every refinement of diabolical vengeance; others were 
harrowed with the recollection of their children's brains dashed out against 
the trees, and the dying shrieks of their dearest friends and connections. 
Still, the consolations of Heaven were not absent from the dying spirits of 
the former, or the wounded hearts of the latter. 

The religion of the heart, gratitude to God, and love for man flourished 
in the rudest stages of society; and not less frequently, with more purity 
than amid the accumulated temptations of refined life. There was, indeed, 
as might very naturally be expected, a roughness of exterior; though con- 
ventional forms of society are never to be confounded with the essence of 
true politeness. There was too exact a retaliation of the savage warfare 
of their subtle and ferocious enemies, and too little respect for the rights 
and moral claims of Indians. But to lie, to cheat, to desert a fellow pioneer 
in distress, were vices unknown to the brave and simple men who conquered 
Kentucky. A manly love of truth, an independence of spirit, which would 
right itself in the "courts of heaven," were almost invariable traits in their 
characters. ■ 

There are some curious particulars in our early arts, which may well be 
recorded. Hats were made of native fur, and sold for five hundred dol- 
lars in the paper money of the times. The wool of the buffalo, and the 
bark or rind of the wild nettle were used in the manufacture of cloth, and 
a peculiar sort of linen out of the latter. 



I 



FIRST COURT IN LINCOLN COUNTY... _—- -^ 187 

The Virginia Legislature had early fixed by law a scale of depreciation 
for the paper money, at one and a half for one in silver or gold. In 1781, 
that body extended the scale of depreciation to the enormous difference of 
one thousand dollars in paper for one in specie. Certificates of depreciation 
were issued on this basis, and directed by law to be taken for taxes and for 
public lands, at fifty cents per hundred acres, in specie. A certain conse- 
quence was to inundate the country with land warrants. To this circum- 
stance may be traced the embarrassments, the confusion, and the litigation 
of after years in the Commonwealth of Kentucky ; for thus were the means 
and the inducements furnished to shingle over one claim with another, until 
they were sometimes tripled and quadrupled upon the same tract of land. 

The first court ever in Lincoln county was organized at Harrodsburg, 
January 16, 1781. A commission from the Governor of Virginia was pro- 
duced and read, appointing the following thirteen "gentlemen" justices of 
the peace to hold the county court, and to be commissioners of any court 
of oyer and terminer or for the trial of slaves, one of the first seven to be a 
part of each court to make it legal : John Bowman, Benjamin Logan, John 
Logan, John Cowan, John Kennedy, Hugh McGary, William Craig, Stephen 
Trigg, Abraham Bowman, Isaac Hite, William McBride, William McAfee, 
and James Estill. Two were already dead when the commission was re- 
ceived, killed by Indians, Kennedy and McAfee; and within seventeen 
months after, three more fell victims to the savages in battle, Trigg, McBride, 
and Estill. 

Benjamin Logan and John Cowan first administered to John Bowman the 
oath: First — Of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia; Second — Of a 
justice of the peace; Third — Of a commissioner or a judge of oyer and termi- 
ner. John Bowman then administered said oaths to Messrs. Benjamin and 
John Logan, McGary, Trigg, and McBride. John Cowan, because he had 
already taken the oath of fidelity to the United States, refused to take the oath 
of allegiance to the State of Virginia; but having slept upon it, and received 
new light, came into court next morning and "took the oath," and a seat 
upon the bench. The others qualified when they could conveniently come 
to court, except Abraham Bowman, who removed to Fayette county. 

On January 21, 1783, the court was increased in numbers by the com- 
mission and qualification of George Adams, John Edwards, Hugh Logan, 
Gabriel Madison, and Alexander Robertson, gentlemen. At the Septem- 
ber term ensuing, William Montgomery, Sr.; at the November term, Isaac 
Shelby, Christopher Irvine, and John Snoddy, became justices and members 
of the court. In February, 1787, shortly after the formation of Madison 
and Mercer counties had taken off large portions of the territory, with 
justices residing therein, eight new justices were commissioned by the 
Governor of Virginia. 



1 88 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

(1782.) 



1782, a year of tragedies. 

Estill's defeat near Mount Sterling. 

A desperate battle. 

Captain Estill and the Indian chief slain. 

Heroic gallantry of Rev. Joseph Proctor. 

Saves the life of Irvine. 

His bravery in other fields. 

Over fifty years in the ministry. 

William Irvine. 

Gallant bravery of the slave, Monk. 

Sam South. 

Holder's repulse. 

Bryan's station attacked by over five 
hundred warriors under Simon Girty. 

Strategy and sharp fighting for two days. 

Girty's cruel malice to the whites. 

Three renegade brothers. 

Their lives and characters. 

Gloomy forebodings of Indians on peace 
with England. 

Williamson's massacre of the Moravian 
Indians. 

Crawford's expedition to exterminate 
the Indians. 

Three hundred whites killed and capt- 
ured. 

Crawford's thrilling tortures while burn- 
ing at the stake. 

Girty's demoniac exultation. 

Confederation of tribes under Girty. 

Attack on Bryan's station. 
-' Ruse of sending the women to the spring 
for water. 

Girty seeks to negotiate a surrender of 
the fort, and fails. 

Baffled and repulsed, the Indians retreat. 

Re-enforcements coming in, premature 
pursuit is made. 



Boone advises to wait for Logan. 

Officers mostly agree. 

McGary's rashness. 

The Indian army halt and give battle to 
one-third their own number. 

Plan and incidents of the battle. 

Disaster of Blue Licks. 

Israel Boone killed. 

Retreat of the Kentuckians. 

Netherland's bravery. 

Reynolds saves Patterson's life. 

Logan's heavy re-enforcements come, 
but too late. 

They bury the dead, and return. 

Letters of Colonels Logan and Levi 
Todd, of Patterson and others. 

The Indians kill four prisoners to equal- 
ize the slain. 

Massacre at Kincheloe's, in Spencer 
county. 

Sufferings of female captives. 

Tribute to Harlan, to Trigg, to Todd. 

Clark again invades Ohio, wiih one thou- 
sand men. 

Burns and destroys the Miami villages. 

Murder near White Oak station. 

Captain Nat. Hart killed; 

Raid in Hardin county. 

Kenton hears news from home, the first 
in years of exile. 

New offices for entering lands opened. 

The flood-gates of confusion and litiga- 
tion opened for future years in Kentucky. 

Daviess and family attacked. 

Mrs. Daviess and children captured. 

Prompt pursuit and recapture. 

Courage of Mrs. Daviess. 

She captures a robber. 



The annals will show that the year 1782 was an eventful one. The 
opening was marked by several successful enterprises on the part of the 
enemy, and with more than usual fatality to the whites. They were the 



1 



■ 



THE KILLING OF MISS JENNIE GASS. 



189 



precursors to further misfortunes, more calamitous than had yet befallen our 
harassed countrymen. The drama opened with what has ever since been 
known as the "Battle of Little Mountain," or "Estill's Defeat," than which 
there is no record of a more desperate and bloody contest, for the numbers 
engaged. The account given by Rev. Proctor is most graphic and inter- 
esting. The narrative of this noted participant, taken from Montgomery's 
statement and embodied in a descriptive article on Madison county, ^ is 
accurate and intensely interesting : 

"On the 19th of March, 1782, Indian rafts, without any one on them, 
were seen floating down the Kentucky river past Boonesborough. Intel- 
ligence of this fact was immediately dispatched to Captain James Estill, at 
his station, fifteen miles from this fort. Estill lost not 
a moment in collecting a force to go in search of the 
Indians, not doubting from his knowledge of their 
character that they designed an immediate blow at his 
or some of the neighboring stations. From his own 
and the nearest stations he raised twenty-five men. 
Joseph Proctor was of the number. AVhile Estill and 
his men were on this expedition, the Indians suddenly 
appeared around his station at the dawn of day, on 
the 20th of March, killed and scalped Miss Jennie 
Gass, the daughter of Judge David Gass, and took 
Monk, a slave of Captain Estill, captive. The Indians 
immediately and hastily retreated, in consequence of 
a highly-exaggerated account which Monk gave them 
of there being forty men in the fort; that these had 
heard of Indians being in the country, and were then 
molding bullets for a pursuit and fight. There were 
really but four invalid men, beside the women and 
children. Undoubtedly, the ready sagacity of Monk 
saved these from a fearful massacre. 

' ' No sooner had the Indians commenced their retreat 
than the women in the fort dispatched two boys, Sam- 
uel South and Peter Hackett, to take the trail of Estill 
and his men, and, overtaking them, give information 
of what had transpired at the fort. The boys sue- {Ere,ted to the memory of 

'■ _ . Captain James hstill, near 

ceeded in coming up with them early on the morning Richmond, Kentucky.] 
of the 2ist, between the mouths of Drowning creek and Red river. After 
a short search, Estill struck the trail of the retreating Indians near the mouth 
of Red river. It was resolved at once to make pursuit, and no time was lost 
in doing so. On the ever-memorable day of March 22, 1782, at Litde Mount- 
ain, just south of and opposite the depot at Mount Sterling, Captain Estill's 
-party came up with the Indians. They proved to be the Wyandottes, and 

I Early Days in Madison County, William Chenault, in Courier-Journal. 




ESTILL MONUMENT. 



190 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

twenty-five in number, exactly that of Captain Estill's. An authority in the 
Estill family adds two Frenchmen to the number of the Wyandottes. 

"The ground was highly favorable to the Indian mode of warfare; but 
Estill and his men, without a moment's hesitation, boldly and fearlessly com- 
menced an attack upon them, and the latter as boldly and fearlessly, for 
they were picked warriors, engaged in the bloody combat. It is, however, 
painful to record that in the very outset of the action Lieutenant Miller, of 
Captain Estill's party, with six men under his command, ' ingloriously 
fled' from the field, thereby placing in jeopardy the whole of their com- 
rades, and causing the death of many brave soldiers. Hence, Estill's party 
numbered eighteen and the Wyandottes twenty-five. Between these parties, 
at the distance of fifty yards, the battle raged for the space of three hours. 
Deeds of desperate daring were common. On either side wounds and death 
were inflicted, neither party advancing nor retreating. ' Every man to his 
man, and every man to his tree.' Captain Estill was now covered with 
blood from a wound received early in the action. Thirteen of his brave 
companions lay dead upon the field, or so disabled by their wounds as to be 
unable to continue the fight. Himself wounded also, Estill's fighting men 
were now reduced to four. Among this number was Joseph Proctor. The 
brave leader of this Spartan band was now brought into personal contest 
with a powerful and active Wyandotte warrior. The conflict was for a time 
fierce and desperate, and keenly and anxiously watched by Proctor, with 
his finger on the trigger of his unerring rifle. Such, however, was the 
struggle between these fearless and powerful warriors that Proctor could not 
shoot without greatly endangering the safety of his captain. Estill had his 
right arm broken the preceding summer in an engagement with Indians; in 
the conflict with the Wyandotte warrior on this occasion that arm gave way, 
and in an instant his savage foe buried his knife in the brave hero's breast. 
Instantly the gallant Proctor sent a ball from his rifle to the Wyandotte's 
heart. Thus ended this memorable battle. It lacks nothing but the circum- 
stance of numbers to make it one of the most memorable in ancient or 
modern times. The loss of the Indians in killed and wounded,- notwith- 
standing disparity of numbers after the shameful retreat of Miller, was even 
greater than that of Captain Estill. There is a tradition derived from the 
AVyandotte town, after a peace, that but one of the warriors engaged ever 
returned to his nation. It is certain that the chief who led on the Wyan- 
dottes with so much desperation fell in the action. Throughout this bloody 
engagement the coolness and bravery of Proctor were unsurpassed. But 
his conduct after the battle has always, with those acquainted with it, elicited 
the warmest encomiums. He brought off the field of battle, and much of 
the way to the station, a distance of forty miles, bearing on his back his 
badly wounded friend, the late Colonel WilUam Irvine, so long and so 
favorably known in Madison county. With the few horses left, the wounded 
were alternately packed by horses or men." 



1 



SKETCH OF CAPTAIN ESTILL. 



191 




The story, with all its circumstances of locality and the fight, was told 
again and again, until even the children knew it by heart. No legendary 
tale was ever listened to with as intense anxiety, or was inscribed in so vivid 
and indelible impress on the hearts of the few of both sexes who then con- 
stituted the hope and the strength of Kentucky. 

The names of the men who survived the 
battle, as given by Collins, in his history, 
are as follows : Colonel Wm. Irvine, Rev. 
Joseph Proctor, Reuben Proctor, James 
Berry, Wm. Cradlebaugh, David Lynch, 
Henry Boyer, John Jameson, David Cook, 
and Lieutenant Wm. Miller. The names 
of those who were killed are all but one 
given by Collins, viz : Captain James Es- 
till, Adam Caperton, Jonathan McMillan, 
Lieutenant John South, Jr. , John Colefoot, 
and — McNeely. With regard to Will- 
iam Miller, for over twenty years David 
Cook watched patiently for him to come 
COLONEL WILLIAM IRVINE. to Richmond, swearing he would kill him 

on sight; but Miller prudently kept away. If he had met the threatened 
fate, no jury in Madison county would have convicted Cook, so intense was, 
^ and is to this day, the admiration for those who fought and the detestation 
of those who so shamefully retreated from the most desperate and deadly of 
all the frontier batdes. The men who escaped from Estill's defeat scattered 
to Boonesborough, Hoy's station. Tanner's station, Irvine's Fort, and Estill's 
station. A draft was immediately made, Estill's station was closely guarded 
for forty days, and scouting parties were sent in every direction. But the 
next appearance of the Indians was in the lower end of the county, where 
they captured two boys from Hoy's station and the daughter of Captain 
Holder. 

The death of Estill was a great loss to the immigration of the county. 
He was an exceedingly active man, and often traveled from Boonesborough 
, to Cumberland Gap alone, to assist and direct pioneers crossing the mount- 
ains from North Carolina and Tennessee. Many incidents of his kindness 
to strangers moving into the county were remembered by the early settlers. 
. A single illustration is all that we can refer to in this brief sketch : At Cum- 
berland Gap, Thomas Warren, who was on his way to Madison, was met by 
Estill. On a lame horse, Warren had packed all his property. He and his 
wife, foot-sore and weary, were at the verge of starvation. Estill said to 
him: "I will kill you a buffalo, and place it in the trace near a spring, and 
, lay some cane across the trace at the point where you ought to turn off to go 
I] to Boonesborough." When Warren reached the place named, he found the 
cane in the path, and the buffalo killed and ready to be eaten. He often 



192 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Stated that he was then so hungry that he did not take time to skin the 
buffalo, but cut out the tongue and ate it. 

The name of the Indian chief who commanded the opposing force at 
Estill's defeat has never been known. The chiefs most celebrated in the 
country were Little Turtle, Black Fish, Red Hawk, and Corn Stalk; but 
history is silent as to who commanded this body of daring Wyandottes. It 
is conceded by all acquainted with the facts in the case that this chieftain ex- 
hibited, in miniature, an exquisite specimen of the military art. McClung, in 
his sketches of " Western Adventure," says "that a delicate maneuver on the 
part of Estill gave an advantage which was promptly seized upon by the In- 
dian chief, and a bold and masterly movement decided the fate of the day. 
The great battles of Austerlitz and Wagram exhibit the same error upon 
the part of one commander and the same successful step on the part of the 
other." Estill's station was for some time afterward the object of Indian 
vengeance. 

One of the most painful incidents of the war was the murder at this sta- 
tion of Miss Jennie Gass, who went out early in the morning to milk the 
cows, and while her mother, who saw the Indians, cried from the station, 
" Run, Jennie, run; the Indians are coming!" the poor girl was caught and 
tomahawked in sight of the mother. Her murderers, in mockery of the 
agonized mother, jumped upon a log and shouted in response, in broken 
jargon, "Run, Jennie, run!" 

The man whose deeds in this day's battle seemed to approach the highest 
order of heroism was the Rev. Joseph Proctor. He was at the post of peril 
and need every moment of the battle, and on the fall of Estill and Irvine, 
fought bravely with unerring rifle in the ranks, while he, with coolness and 
order, directed the incidents of the bloody strife. Besides the slayer of Estill, 
other foemen fell under his death-dealing marksmanship. Toward the close 
of battle, with William Irvine and two others, he was covering the retreat, 
when Irvine was wounded by a bullet and two buckshot, in the groin. The 
Indian who shot him sprang from cover, and ran to tomahawk and scalp 
him. Irvine raised and sighted his empty gun at him, when he sheltered 
behind the tree again. Proctor, seeing the danger, called to Irvine to mount 
the horse of the slain Estill and make his way to a designated spot, some 
three miles on the road to their station, where he would come to his aid. 
Irvine attempted to mount, when the Indian dashed out again ; and Irvine 
again drove him to cover with his empty gun. Four times this maneuver 
was repeated, when Irvine at last mounted and rode away, as advised. 

In due time Proctor and comrades fell back to the designated spot, and 
searching, with some difficulty, found Irvine concealed in the brush, and suf- 
fering and exhausted, with his faithful white steed near by, and patiently 
waiting. At first they approached stealthily, fearing an ambuscade ; but the 
quick ear of the sufferer caught the sound of footsteps, and recognition soon 
followed, to the relief and joy of all. Proctor dressed his wounds, alter- 



FAITHFULNESS OF THE SLAVE, MONK. I93 

nately packed him on his shoulders and placed him on the willing horse, 
with one of the men behind to support him, and safely conveyed him to 
' Estill's station. Though he suffered years with the imbedded bullets, Irvine 
survived his wounds, and lived nearly forty years after they were received. 
He was a delegate from Madison county to the Virginia convention of 1788, 
' which ratified the Constitution of the United States. He represented the 
same county in the House of Delegates in 1789, and in the separation con- 
ventions at Danville from 1787 to 1790. He was presidential elector for 
' his district in 1805, 181 3, and 181 7, a member of the constitutional conven- 
tion of 1799, which made the second Constitution of Kentucky, a member 
of the Kentucky Society for the Promotion of Knowledge, organized at 
Danville in 17S7, sometimes walking forty miles to attend its meetings. He 
also held other important official positions, and died honored and respected 
^ by his generation. 

Rev. Joseph Proctor was among the bravest of the brave, as a typical 

pioneer, notwithstanding his long and devoted services as a zealous minister 

• of the Methodist church. Three times he joined the invading expeditions 

' against the Ohio towns, and in a fight at Pickaway slew a noted chief who 

f had engaged him in deadly combat. He fought side by side with Boone, 

I Logan, and other noted veterans, and nobly did a soldier's part in the days 

f of peril, and ended his useful career with over half a century in the min- 

I istry of the Christian religion. He lived and died in ripe old age, in Estill 

county. He was the founder of the Providence Methodist Church, in the 

northern part of Madison county, and this was first called Proctor's Chapel. 

A remarkable incident occurred during the battle, illustrative of the 

faithfulness and gallant bravery of the slaves, which were so often shown 

in times of peril to their masters and families. Monk, who had been capt- 

i ured, was still held by the Wyandottes: When the battle raged fiercely, 

i Monk's voice suddenly rang out through the crack of the rifles and the 

' forest echoes, in rallying tones to the whites, "Don't give way, Massa Jim; 

t, there's only about twenty-five of the redskins, and you can whip 'em!" 

^ Thus inspirited, the Kentuckians fought on to the last. Monk effected his 

j escape in the confusion and carnage of the fight, and made his way to the 

i" whites at the close. He repeatedly rendered invaluable services to the gar- 

I risons at Boonesborough and Estill's, by supplying them with powder he had 

dexterously learned to manufacture from saltpetre obtained from a cave, 

now known as Peyton's cave, in Madison county, the first powder made 

I in Kentucky. The worth of Monk was recognized by all around him, and 

. his young master, Wallace Estill, gave him his freedom, besides clothing 

and feeding him at home for life, in token of his high regard for his faithful 

1^ character. 

Lieutenant Miller, with six men, in the arrangement for battle, was or- 
dered to guard the horses of the dismounted men, and to prevent a flank 
movement of the enemy, if attempted. The Indians did flank, when Miller 

13 



194 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



gave way without due resistance, and disappeared from the scene of action, 
.with all the horses lost. As the Indians advanced in this movement, Monk 
called out to Miller, from the bushes, in English, which the Indians did not 
understand, to stand his ground, and they would win the fight. Upon the 
return home, without a sufficiency of horses, James Berry, with his thigh 
broken by a rifle-ball, was carried mainly on Monk's back, twenty-five miles, 
to Estill's station. 

Monk Estill was a noble specimen of the colored race. He was treated 
with all the respect and affection of a member of the family in which he 

was once a slave, and by whom he was 
afterward made a freeman. One of the 
Estill family, Mr. Brown Lee Yates, 
of Madison county, thus writes of him: 
"Monk was five feet five inches in 
height, and weighed about two hundred 
pounds. He was the husband of three 
wives, by whom he had thirty children. 
He was father of the first colored child, 
Jerry, born at Boone's fort, afterward a 
preacher in the Baptist church at Shel- 
by ville. He was a respected member, 
when white and colored lived in the same 
church together, and broke bread at the 
same communion-table. He was my 
near neighbor for twenty-four years, and 
died about 1835." 

The fall of Captain James Estill was 
greatly lamented throughout the district 
of Kentucky. He came from Green- 
brier county, Virginia, early in the year 
1775. He was one of the trustees of 
Boonesborough when chartered, -in 1779. 
THE SLAVE, MONK ESTILL, He was a member of Captain John Hol- 

der's company of Boonesborough riflemen. In 1780, he built Estill station, 
on Little Muddy creek, and took command of the troops there. In 1781, 
he was appointed judge of the court of Quarter Sessions at Harrodstown. 
Says Judge Robertson, in his well-known opinion in the case of Connelly's 
heirs vs. Childs, reported in 5 J. J. Marshall, page 204 : "The usefulness and 
popularity of Captain Estill, the deep and universal sentiment excited by the 
death of a citizen so gallant and so beloved, the masterly skill and chivalric 
daring displayed throughout the action, all contributed to give to Estill's 
defeat a most signal notoriety and importance, especially among the early 
settlers." Though the numbers were insignificant, the bravery displayed 
made a profound impression. 




CAUSES OF THE ATTACK ON BRYAN's STATION. 1 95 

Samuel South, one of the boys already mentioned as bearing the news 
of the killing of Jennie Gass, near the station, to Captain Estill, afterward 
became quite eminent as a soldier and politician of Eastern Kentucky. He 
represented Madison county for fourteen successive years, from 1800 to 
18 13, inclusive, and was chairman at different times of almost every impor- 
tant committee of the Legislature organized to transact its business ; and at 
one time was defeated by Henry Clay, for speaker of the House, by but 
one vote. He was colonel in command of one of the regiments in Hopkins' 
campaign in 181 2. 

About the loth of August, a band of Indians made a raiding expedition 
in the vicinity of William Hoy's station, five miles south of Richmond, Mad- 
ison county, and capturing two boys, recrossed the Kentucky with their pris- 
oners. Captain John Holder gathered a party of men from his own station, 
and increased the number by recruits as he passed by McGee's and Strode's 
stations, to seventeen in all. He came up with the Indians near Upper Blue 
Licks, and attacked them with spirit; but finding them in much stronger 
force than he expected, and fearing that they might flank and overpower his 
party, he quietly withdrew, with the loss of four men killed and wounded. 

1 On the night of August 14th, Bryan's station was invested by an Indian 
army of over five hundred warriors, under the lead of the noted white rene- 
gade, Simon Girty. Of the causes and forebodings which preceded this 
most eventful invasion of Kentucky, the following is a lucid and interesting 
account: ^ 

"The most potent, perhaps, of all the immediate causes that led to the 
attack on the Kentucky settlements in 1782, and to the battle of the Blue 
Licks, was the malignant activity of the renegade Simon Girty. 

"The atrocities attributed to Girty, or immediately associated with his 
name, exceed the horrors of even savage barbarity. To his bloody imagi- 
nation the tomahawk and scalping-knife were but the toys of war; and the 
slaughter of captives, without distinction of age or sex, the merest matter 
of course. His delight was in the prolonged torture of his victims, and he 
seemed to enjoy a double pleasure in the exquisite torment of the sufferer, 
and the frenzied cruelty of the Indians, whom he knew only too well how 
to excite. 

"His rude and bold nature had received a sinister education, and he 
seemed marked from his infancy to be the scourge of the frontier. 

"Simon Girty was one of four sons of an Irish emigrant settled in Penn- 
sylvania — a vicious and drunken wretch, who was killed by his wife's para- 
mour. The four boys were captured in early childhood by a war party, 
and three of them permanently adopted an Indian life. ^ George became 
a Delaware, and continued with them until his death. He is said, on the- 

1 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 131 ; McClung, p. 62. 

2 Oration of Colonel John Mason Brown, at the Centennial of the Battle of Blue Licks. 

3 Perkins, Western Annals, p. 170-1, note ; Campbell, Biographical Sketches, p. 147. 



196 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

authority of one well informed, to have lost every trait and habit that marks 
the white man, and to have become an absolute savage. His fidelity to his. 
adopted people never wavered; indeed, he knew no other kindred, and he 
surpassed the native Indian in that skill and cunning which is peculiarly 
his own. He appears to have been very brave, and to have fought the 
whites with skill and distinction at the Kanawha, at Sandusky, and at the- 
Blue Licks. Tradition has rated him as a mere Indian, and he has escaped. 
the execration that attaches to his brother's name. 

"James Girty was adopted by the Shawanees. He passed in his earlier 
life repeatedly between the camp and war-path of the Indian and the fron- 
tier rendezvous of most abandoned whites. He imbibed all the worst vices- 
of both races, and exaggerated them in the fury of an unbridled lust for 
carnage. His delight was to devise new and lingering tortures for captives, 
and to superintend their application. 

"Even after disease had destroyed his power of walking, he would cause- 
captive women and children to be forced within his reach, that he might, 
hew them with his tomahawk. His life stands unrelieved by a single good, 
deed or a single savage virtue. Once he pretended to warn some whites- 
against an impending attack, but it seems probable that some cunning design^ 
was hidden behind it. It may be, as some have insisted, that much of the- 
infamy that has been accorded Simon Girty belongs properly to his brother- 
James. If it were possible to test the traditions which have come down to- 
ns, perhaps an impartial judgment might absolve the more famous rene- 
gade from many a crime that has been laid to his charge. For Simon Girty 
showed intellectual qualities, and at times was kindly beyond his brothers, 
or the other renegade whites. He remembered Kenton as an ancient friend, 
and saved his life. In other instances he showed an almost pity. But it 
was in each case in his earlier life as a warrior, and before the year 1778. 

"Simon Girty became in his childhood a Seneca Indian. They were- 
his people and his friends. Though he wandered back at intervals to the- 
verge of the white settlements, and was even for a brief time Kenton's com- 
rade as a spy for Lord Dunmore's expedition, he returned again to hi^ 
Indian life. His hatred of the whites seemed to be intensified when the 
Indian tribes took up the hatchet as allies of England, and after 1778 he- 
carried on an unrelenting war. For such a man, stained with so many 
cruelties, abhorred and dreaded throughout the frontier, to return to his- 
race, or hope to live within the pale of civilization, was impossible. 

" The peace with Great Britain left Girty no choice but that of the Indian 
life, so congenial to him, no occupation but that of war to the death. Other 
whites, too, had, like Girty, become identified with the Indians, and had. 
shared in their barbarities. Elliott and McKee, who had traded with the- 
Shawanees, cast their fortunes with Girty, and, like him, devoted every 
energy to stirring up the Indians to war. Apostates from civilization, they" 
surpassed the barbarian in hatred of its virtues. 



MURDER OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS. I97 

"There were, therefore, abundant reasons why the year 1782 should 
have been signaHzed by a mighty effort against the Kentucky settlements. 
As has been seen, the leading Indians looked with dismay to their future; 
the renegade whites were desperate. 

"But as often happens when affairs are ripe for great events, an occasion 
for revenge, and an argument for a great expedition, was furnished to the 
hands of Girty and his allies. 

"During the preceding year an expedition of retaliation against the 
Wyandottes had marched from the Pennsylvania frontier. It was followed 
in the early spring of 1782 by one under command of Williamson, who 
chose to think that the Christian Indians upon the Sandusky, where the 
Moravian Mission had been established, were participants in the Wyan- 
dottes' forays. With a barbarity that might have shamed Girty, he caused 
forty men, twenty women, and thirty-four children, whom he had captured, 
to be murdered in cold blood. The awful deed was perpetrated with a 
formal deliberation that lent a more revolting horror to the tragedy. Will- 
iamson and his ninety men took a solemn vote, and but sixteen favored 
mercy. ^ The prisoners had been captured as they gleaned the poor rem- 
nants of their ravaged fields, planted under their missionaries' care, and 
cultivated as part of their education into a civilized life. And there they 
were murdered, 'all of them' (as the saintly Heckewelder tells us) 'defense- 
less and innocent fellow Christians.' ^ 

"The awful crime of Williamson and his party, far from exciting horror, 
roused only a frenzy of impatience to complete the work of extermination. 
Another expedition was at once organized against the towns of the Mora- 
vian Delawares and Wyandottes upon the Sandusky. It rendezvoused not 
far from Fort Pitt, on the 20th of May, and was commanded by Colonel 
William Crawford, the former trusted agent of Washington. Nearly five 
hundred men took part in it, all well armed and mounted; and the purpose 
of the march was ostentatiously declared : ' No Indian was to be spared, 
friend or foe ; every red man was to die. ' 

"The Indian chiefs, and Girty and his fellows, fo-und a ready response 
to their cry for resistance and revenge. So well were their measures taken 
that they killed and captured the greater part of Crawford's command. 
Williamson, the murderer of the Moravians, escaped, deserting homeward 
before the crisis of the expedition. The torture of Crawford, his death at 
the stake, the fiendish laughter of Girty as he witnessed his agony and 
denied the wretched sufferer's prayers for speedy death, have come down 
to us in the narrative of an eye-witness. The dreadful story need not be 
here repeated. The fortitude of the dying soldier was as conspicuous as 
were his agonies prolonged and acute. He died bravely, and the story of 

1 A full and most pathetic account of Williamsons massacre will be found in Doddridge, Settle- 
ment and Indian Wars, pp. 250-1. 

2 Heckewelder's Narrative, pp. 312-328. 



198 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

his death is one of the most familiar examples of Indian barbarity. ^ These 
excesses of cruelty seldom failed to bring bloody retaliations. 

"We may feel a pride in the fact that, although the brunt of Indian 
vengeance was borne by Kentucky, though her best blood paid the penalty 
of Williamson's crime and Crawford's error, no Kentuckian had lot or part 
in either. Neither expedition was suggested, organized, or promoted in 
any respect by the Kentucky settlers. 

" In all the chronicles of those long years, from Finley's first journey in 
1767 to the end of the Indian wars at the battle of the Thames in 18 13, 
no instance, save McGary's killing of Moluntha, occurs where Kentuckians 
met the foe on other than equal terms and in fair fight. Hundreds of in- 
stances attest their equal readiness for single combat or contest of numbers, 
and almost every encounter brought death to the pioneer or his foe; but 
the escutcheon of Kentucky has never been tarnished with the blot of 
cruelty, nor her lofty courage soiled by massacre of the defenseless, or by 
indignity to prisoners of war. 

"The excitement of Crawford's expedition, and the exultation that fol- 
lowed his defeat, enabled Girty and the chiefs to arrange with celerity and 
secrecy for a formidable incursion into Kentucky. The warriors were 
flushed with victory and mad with hate. An army of whites had already 
been destroyed, and the prestige of the Indian name restored by a victory 
in the open field, over a well-equipped force, commanded by a veteran and 
trusted officer. An achievement had crowned the Indian arms greater than 
the victory over Braddock or the successes of Pontiac and his allies. Here- 
tofore, ambuscade and surprise had been their reliance. Crawford's defeat 
and capture had shown that the Indian could defend his own country with 
equal numbers in the open field. The dream of Pontiac seemed realized ; 
the confederation which he had labored to organize seemed now accom- 
plished, and its mission at hand. The warriors of all that broad territory 
that stretched from the Ohio to the lakes, and extended from the Wabash 
on the west to Fort Pitt and the Alleghany river on the east, were united in 
counsel and in hope. The concerted action of the ablest chiefs gave direc- 
tion to a universal impatience for a march and an attack. The great league 
which Pontiac had once before formed, and which, in after years, was to 
be revived by Tecumseh, in the death struggle of the Indian power, was 
consolidated and ready for immediate action. No opportunity ever pre- 
sented itself to the Indian at once so full of hope and so stimulating to 
his patriotism. 

"The chiefs, in passionate language, called for a march that was to 
recover their old hunting-grounds, and at the same time secure themselves 
from invasion. 

"If the continued settlement of Kentucky were to be allowed without 
resistance, the fate of the North-west was only too plain; but could the vie- 

I Western Annals, pp. 245-8. 



GIRTY CALLS FOR RE-ENFORCEMENTS. 1 99 

torious league sweep from the soil of Kentucky the scattered occupants 
that in seven years' time had dotted its isolated center, and exterminate the 
pioneers as Crawford had been defeated, then would the West be indeed 
regained, and the AUeghanies become once more the bound to the white 
man's intrusion, and the bulwark of the Indian's security. 

" It was a large and bold design that inspired the able chiefs of the con- 
federated tribes. Their purpose was to regain Kentucky, and to hold the 
entire West from the gulf northward to the lakes; and that purpose must 
have succeeded but for the men whose bones lie buried here. 

"The time for the decisive struggle was at hand. The opportunity was 
one which years might not again present. The fate of the West was to be 
tried. Conscious of the gravity of the enterprise, and fully competent for 
its organization and conduct, the war chiefs of the tribes omitted no precau- 
tions nor indulged any delays. Runners were sent out to the tribes to 
summon all who were willing to join in the great expedition that was 
to crush the Kentuckians and yield a rich booty of scalps and plunder. By 
the ist of August the gathering began at the old town of Chillicothe. The 
response to Girty's call was prompt and general. The Shawanees, Cherokees, 
Wyandottes, Miamis, and Pottawattamies combined to swell the invading 
force, and in a few days more than five hundred warriors were on the march 
for Kentucky. 

"It does not appear what was Girty's organization of his force or who 
were his lieutenants, but the conduct of the fight a few days later showed a 
discipline and control remarkable in such a sudden levy, drawn from so 
many different tribes. He was able to enforce such secrecy and rapidity of 
movement that no warning of his march preceded him; and, what is stranger 
still, had the power to restrain his men until the decisive moment of his mur- 
derous attack. It is to be presumed that McKee and Elliott were in the 
expedition. With a refinement of cruelty, the Kentuckians captured two 
years before at Ruddle's and Martin's stations, and who owed their lives to 
the interference of Colonel Byrd, were forced to accompany the march and 
witness the death of friends and kindred. They were spectators of miseries 
which they could not avert, and after an unwilling participation in the cam- 
paign were returned to their captivity. ^ 

"The march of Girty and his Indians took Kentucky by surprise. Not a 
note of warning had been given. A less adroit enemy might well have 
succeeded in escaping detection, for not a settlement was in existence in all 
the territory north and east of the south fork of the Licking. From the 
mouth of the Licking to Louisville, and as far southward as Leestown, a 
station on the Kentucky river one mile below the present site of Frankfort, 
not a single inhabitant was to be found. The pioneers had clustered, as has 
been already observed, in localities that lay within a radius of mutual im- 
mediate assistance. By a kind of natural selection, the first Kentuckians 

I Collins, Vol. IL, p. 327. 



200 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

took and held the ' Bluegrass.' The law of heredity seems to continue that 
preference in their descendants. ^ 

"Girty, descending the Little Miami with his force, crossed the Ohio 
unobserved, and hastened along the war trace made by Byrd two years 
before, into Central Kentucky. Leaving it, however, as seems probable, 
near Mill creek, in what is now Harrison county, he passed rapidly to the 
west and south of Ruddle's station, skirting the western banks of Stoner 
and Cooper's Run, through Bourbon county, and, following the ridge which 
divides the waters of North Elkhorn from those tributary to the south fork 
of the Licking, suddenly appeared before Bryan's station. It was on the 
night of the 14th of August that Girty, with his nearly six hundred Indians, 
surrounded the station. Within its stockade were forty cabins, and, by 
rarest good fortune, every man of its garrison, of about sixty effective rifle- 
men, was fully prepared for immediate duty. Lexington also, where forty- 
four men could be mustered, was in like state of preparation. Girty's prime 
object was to destroy these two stations and exterminate their little garrisons. . 
If that were accomplished, all Kentucky north of the Kentucky river was 
regained. The plan failed only because of his own too great promptitude. 

"In order to draw the small companies of defenders from the protection 
of their stockades, Girty detached a party of Wyandottes, who rapidly 
pushed on to Hoy's station, on the south side of the Kentucky river, in what 
is now Madison county, a few hundred yards from the site of the village of 
Foxtown. They so timed their march that on the loth of August they com- 
mitted some depredations there and captured two boys, retreating in no great 
haste eastward and across the Kentucky river. Captain Holder, with a few 
men, pursued, and augmenting his force by small additions at McGee's and 
Strode's stations, continued to follow the retreating Wyandottes, sending the 
alarm in the meantime to Bryan's station and Lexington. Holder came up 
with the enemy at the Upper Blue Licks on the 12th of August, and was 
forced to retreat with loss. At the news of his defeat, which was received 
at Bryan's station on the 14th, it was resolved to march at daybreak on the 
morrow to relieve Hoy's station and assist Holder. 

"Girty had expected that the news would have been received, and the 
march made on the 14th, and for that reason, when he surrounded the sta- 
tion, he thought to have the double advantage of an easy capture of the 
station and the non-combatants, and of cutting off its garrison in the open 
country. 

" Had Girty's arrival been delayed but a (e\v hours, his expectation would 
have been realized; for when, long after midnight, he surrounded the station, 
a busy activity was to be noted within the fort. Lights still burned, and 
fires glowed in every cabin, though the heat of midsummer was oppressive. 
The real cause of this unusual and unexpected wakefulness was the intended 

I The first allusion to bluegrass, or English grass (as it is there called), as a distinctive growth, 
will be found m the proof quoted in the case of Darnall vs. Higgins, Hardin's Kentucky Reports, p. 52. 



GIRTY AS AN ORATOR. 20I 

march of the men at the coming of dawn. The women were industriously 
repairing moccasins and cooking rations for their husbands and brothers. 
The men were molding bullets and putting in complete order their trusty 
rifles. Not a soul within the fort dreamed that six hundred Indians already 
lay around them and within gunshot. 

" The dawn found Girty's preparations all completed and those within the 
station yet ignorant of their imminent peril. The gates were opened and 
the well-prepared pioneers started on their march. Fortunately for them, 
Girty's orders were only too well obeyed. A heavy fire was opened on 
them. Ten minutes more of delay would have secured for Girty his grand 
opportunity. But the alarm had been given, and the weight of the volley 
betokened the number of the assailants. The Kentuckians fell back in- 
stantly within their defenses, and all hope of surprise was lost to the Indian 
army. Bryan's station, if taken at all, was to be captured by assault and 
desperate fighting. 

1" Girty, in order to inflame the minds of the young warriors against the 
Kentuckians, called them around him, took an elevated stand, disengaged 
Iiis arm from his blanket, assumed the attitude of an orator, and delivered 
the following address : 

"'Brethren, the fertile region of Kentucky is the land of cane and 
clover, spontaneously growing to feed the buffalo, the elk, and the deer. 
There the bear and the beaver are always fat. The Indians from all tribes 
have had a right from time immemorial to hunt and kill these animals, and 
to bring off their skins to purchase clothing, to buy blankets for their backs, 
and rum to send down their throats to drive away the cold, and rejoice their 
hearts after the fatigue of hunting and the toil of war. [Great applause 
from the warriors.] But, brethren, the Long Knives have overrun your 
country and usurped your hunting-ground; they have destroyed the cane, 
trodden down the clover, killed the deer and buffalo, the bear, and the rac- 
coon. The beaver has been chased from his dam and forced to leave the 
country. [Palpable emotion among the hearers.] Brothers, the intruders 
on your lands exult in the success that has crowned their flagitious acts. 
They are planting fruit trees and plowing the land where not long since 
were the cane-brake and clover-field. Was there a voice in the trees of the 
forest, or articulate sounds in the gurgling waters, every part of the country 
would call on you to chase away these ruthless invaders, who are laying it 
Avaste. Unless you rise in the majesty of your might and exterminate their 
Avhole race^ you may bid adieu to the hunting-grounds of your fathers, to 
the delicious flesh of the animals with which it once abounded, and to the 
skins with which you were once enabled to purchase your clothing and your 
rum. ' 

"There were men within the station whose long experience of a frontier 
life fitted them for the emergency. Elijah Craig was in command, and with 

I Bradford's Notes, Sec. 13. 



202 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

him Robert and Cave Johnson and others — \vell-tried men. Though they 
were but sixty opposed to six hundred, no thought of anything but energetic 
fight was entertained. The Httle garrison was distributed along the stockade. 
The very children contributed to the defense, and while their mothers 
molded bullets which their fathers shot at the foe, they busied themselves in 
extinguishing the flames lighted by fire arrows from the Indian camp, and 
stimulated by the general display of courage, went from place to place with 
their buckets and gourds, playing their parts as became their parentage. 
Such, at five years of age, was the first lesson and service in war of William 
Johnson, who was afterward to save Harrison and the Western army by his 
relief of Fort Meigs, and to die — too early — from the exposure of the cam- 
paign of the Maumee. 

"And such was the lullaby of that youngest infant there, who was in 
after years to share in large measure the honors of his State and nation, but 
whose proudest distinction it was that Richard M. Johnson commanded, in 
the final battle of the Indian wars, that regiment of Kentucky riflemen 
before whom the noble Tecumseh and the renegade Girty fell. 

"The news sent out from Bryan's station on the morning of the 15th of 
August had not stopped at Lexington or Todd's station. It flew like the 
summons of the fiery cross throughout the settlements. By nightfall, Boone 
received the tidings at Boonesborough, and at early dawn was in motion with 
all his little force. With him in this, which was to be the old pioneer's last 
of all his fights, went his youngest boy — his Israel — destined to death in the 
coming battle, the father's last sacrifice on yonder mountain in the cause to 
which he had so devoted himself. Trigg, too, came up in haste from Har- 
rodsburg, bringing with him Harlan and McGary, and the men from across 
the Kentucky. 

"Logan was warned at St. Asaph's, and with all possible rapidity collected 
such as could be drawn from the remoter settlements. The word had gone 
out that every fighting man was needed. The response to the call was in- 
stant and unanimous. 

"During the 17th, Boone and Trigg, Harlan and McBride, and McGary 
and their men had reached Bryan's station. Enough men had hurried 
thither to swell the number to what the better account, on the authority of 
Boone, fixes at one hundred and eighty-one riflemen. Their rendezvous 
was not obstructed by the Indians. With a deep and subtle purpose Girty 
permitted them to pass unattacked into the station." 

The builders of the fort had committed the common error of locating 
it apart from the spring which supplied the garrison with water. As a cun- 
ning strategy, the Indians had placed in ambush, in easy shot of this spring, 
a formidable body of warriors. Another party was to attack on the other 
side, and drawing the attention of the garrison in this direction, to create 
an opportunity for a successful assault from the ambushed force. The open- 
ing of the gate and the visit to the spring of a party of water-carriers, they 



THE RUSE OF THE PIONEERS. 



203 



hoped would present this opportunity. The dilemma presented two evils, 
between which it was hard to choose. 

The designs of the Indians were quickly penetrated by Elijah Craig and 
his veteran foresters; and after manning the gates, the bastions, and the 
loopholes to the best advantage, and repairing the palisades, the very grave 
question of a supply of water came up for action. They well divined the 
ambushed foe in easy range of the spring, and that almost certain death 
awaited any party of men who should expose themselves there; also, that 
the concealed warriors would not likely unmask until the continuous firing 
on the other side was returned with such warmth as to induce the belief that 
the feint was successful. The strategy of the Indians must be counteracted 
with more cunning strategy on the part of the whites. The latter fell upon 
this ruse : They called together all the women, and explained to them the 
improbability of injury being offered to them, until the firing had been 
returned from the opposite side of the fort, and urged them to go in a body 
to the spring, and each bring up a bucket of water. The gentle sex rather 
demurred, insisting that they were not bullet-proof, and that Indians had 
hitherto shown no distinction of delicacy between male and female scalps. 

To this it was answered, that women were in the habit of bringing water 
every morning to the fort, and that if the Indians saw them so engaged as 
usual, it would lead them to think their ambuscade was undiscovered ; and 
that they would not unmask for the sake of firing at a few women, when 
they were hoping to gain complete possession of the fort by remaining con- 
cealed; that if the men should go to the spring, the Indians would suspect 
something to be wrong, and despairing of their ambuscade, would rush on 
them, shoot them, and follow them into the fort. 

The decision was soon made. The bolder declared their willingness at 
once, and the younger and more timid acquiesced. They marched down in 
a body to the spring, under the death-dealing guns of hundreds of warriors, 
and in point-blank range. Some of the girls betrayed symptoms of fear, 
but the married women moved with a steadiness and composure that com- 
pletely deceived the Indians. Not a shot was fired. One bucket after 
another was filled, without interruption ; and although their steps became 
quicker and quicker, and, as they neared the gate, degenerated into a rather 
unmilitary haste, attended with some ungraceful crowding in passing the 
gate, yet not more than one-fourth of the water was spilled on the entire way. 

The defensive arrangements completed, thirteen men were sent out of 
the fort to attack the decoy party, with spirit and vigor, while the remainder 
of the garrison, with guns ready, waited for the ambushed foe to assault. 
The strategy succeeded. Girty, at the head of the main body of warriors, 
sprang out of concealment, and rushed toward the palisades, undefended 
as he thought. The Indians were thoroughly undeceived, as the riflemen 
poured several deadly volleys, in succession, into the dusky ranks, and with 
destructive fatality. In a daze of consternation, they scattered to the woods. 



2 04 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and in a few minutes not one was visible. The smaller party of the garri- 
son, who had sallied out on the Lexington road, now came running safely 
into the fort again, elated at the success of their counterplot against the 
savages. 

Tomlinson and Bell had been dispatched on fleet horses to Lexington for 
re-enforcements. On arrival, they found all the fighting men had marched 
to the rendezvous at Hoy's station, for its protection, having had intelli- 
gence of Holder's defeat. The couriers followed them at full speed, and 
overtaking them on the road, informed them of the attack on Bryan's. The 
attack on Hoy's was no doubt a diversion, to prevent aid going to Bryan s 
There were with them some from other stations, on the same errand, in all 
about fifty men, one-third of whom were mounted. The order of counter- 
march was promptly given, and as promptly obeyed, toward Bryan's station. 
By two o'clock in the afternoon, this force appeared before the station, as 
yet unconscious of the numbers of the enemy. With gallant resolve, they 
dashed forward to cut their way into the fort. The Indians had seen the 
couriers break through their lines early in the morning, and were upon the 
alert expectant for the arrival of re-enforcements, prepared to give them a 
bloody welcome. 

On the left of the road to Lexington, within a short distance of the fort, 
there was a luxuriant field of Indian corn, of one hundred acres, standing 
at full height of ten feet, a dense -wilderness of dark green; and upon the 
opposite side of the road, a forest of virgin growth. Here, on either side, 
lay three hundred painted warriors, well hid in ambush. Firing had ceased, 
and all was quiet. As the re-enforce neared the fort, in file along the narrow 
way, the horsemen spurred into a brisk gallop, at a venture, when suddenly 
they were saluted with a shower of bullets from the woods and the corn-field. 
The gallop was quickened to a run at full speed, through a rattling fire, for 
several hundred yards. Owing to the rapid pace, and to the friendly clouds 
of blinding dust raised by the horses' feet, they entered the fort by a miracle 
of escape, without a wound. The foot soldiers fared not so well. They 
had entered the corn-field to take advantage of its cover in making their way 
to the fort. Instead of following out this instinct of self-preservation, when 
they heard the firing, without reckoning the number of guns, they rushed 
toward the sound of battle, and suddenly found themselves within pistol- 
shot of three hundred savages between themselves and the fort. There was 
but a saving coincidence to avert an impending slaughter. The red men 
had not time to reload since their fire upon the horsemen, but rushed furi- 
ously upon the little band of riflemen with brandished tomahawks. The 
resolute whites cocked and pointed their deadly loaded rifles at the over- 
Avhelming enemy, who were ever cautious in rushing upon these weapons in 
the hands of skillful backwoodsmen. Falling back to reload, the Kentuck- 
ians ran rapidly and tortuously through the sheltering corn-stalks. The In- 
dians pursued, while the melee degenerated into a disorderly effort of every 



GIRTY FAILS IN NEGOTIATION. 205 

man to run, or fight his way out as best he could. Some escaped through 
the corn and cane, some were shot down, and others kept up a running 
single-handed fight against the pursuers. A daring and active young man 
was hotly pursued by Girty and several warriors, when, after several feints 
at shooting, he felt himself compelled to pull the trigger, and Girty fell at 
the crack of the rifle. His red comrades stopped to gather around their 
leader, when the white man made good his escape. But Girty was not des- 
tined to die of that well-aimed messenger. The thick leather of his bullet- 
pouch caught the missive before it reached a vital point, and the concussive 
force but knocked the renegade down. 

The corn-field was a lively theater for the life-and-death drama played 
for an hour. The rattling stalks of corn, as the pursued dodged the pur- 
suers, the frequent sharp report of the rifle, and the yells and war-whoops 
that arose above the waving tassels from unseen combatants, presented a 
grand medley of exciting incidents not often repeated. Only six of the 
Kentuckians were killed and wounded, and the remainder of those escaping 
made their way back to Lexington. 

It was near the close of the day, and both sides had mainly ceased firing. 
The Indians had not been successful in strategy, nor in the issues of battle. 
Their losses, especially in the morning, had been severe and disheartening. 
They knew that the country was now well alarmed, and that the back- 
woods avengers would, by an early hour the next day, be upon them in 
force. The chiefs spoke of decamping at once, to which Girty, who had 
promised and boasted much, demurred. As a forlorn, though not very 
animating, hope, he would try the efficacy of negotiation. Shadowing him- 
self behind a large stump that stood not far from one of the bastions, and, 
crawling on his hands and knees immediately under its protection, he hailed 
the garrison. McClung pictures in lively words the serio-comic diplomacy 
that passed between Girty and a spokesman for the fort. Girty highly com- 
mended their courage, but assured them that resistance was madness, as he 
had six hundred warriors with him, and hourly awaited re-enforcements, with 
artillery, which would batter their fort walls like an egg-shell; that if the 
fort was taken by artillery and storm, it would be impossible for him to save 
their lives; but if they surrendered at once, he gave his word of honor that 
they should be treated as prisoners of war. He told them his name, inquired 
if they knew him, and assured them they might safely trust his word. 

The garrison listened in silence to this speech, and many seemed dis- 
mayed at the mention of cannon, remembering the fate of Ruddle's station. 
But a young man by the name of Aaron Reynolds, highly distinguished for 
courage, energy, and gayety of temper, perceiving the effect of Girty's 
speech, assumed to reply to it. 

To Girty's inquiry "whether the garrison knew him," Reynolds replied 
"that he was very well known; that he himself had a very worthless dog, 
to which he had given the name 'Simon Girty,' in striking resemblance to 



2o6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the man of that name; that if he had either artillery or re-enforcements, he 
might bring them up and try them ; that if either himself or any of the naked 
rascals with him found their way into the fort, they would disdain to use 
their guns against them, but would drive them out with switches; and finally 
he declared that they also expected re-enforcements; that the whole country 
was marching to their assistance; and that if Girty and his gang of mur- 
derers remained twenty-four hours longer, their scalps would be spread out 
to dry in the sun on the roofs of the cabins." 

Girty took great offense at the tone and language of the young Ken- 
tuckian, and retired, with an expression of sorrow for the inevitable destruc- 
tion that awaited the whites by the morrow. He quickly rejoined the chiefs, 
and instant preparations were made for raising the siege, and at daylight in 
the morning the deserted camp alone remained. Fires were still brightly 
burning, and several pieces of meat were left upon their roasting-sticks, 
showing the departure to have been just at daylight. 

But the sequel to this episode of attack and repulse at Bryan's fort was 
as saddening to the homes and hearts of the frontiersmen as the discomfiture 
of the invading army had been dispiriting to Girty and his warrior hosts. 
On the retreat of the latter, the most energetic measures were taken to 
hasten forward for rendezvous at Bryan's, the re-enforcements already on the 
move forward from Harrodsburg, Boonesborough, Logan's fort, and other 
stations in calling distance. By the i8th, one hundred and eighty-one 
riflemen had gathered, and several hundred more were expected in less than 
twenty-four hours, under command of Colonel Logan, from the south side 
of the Kentucky river. All were but too eager for the pursuit and punish- 
ment of the savage hordes before they could recross the Ohio; and from 
premature action born of this eagerness resulted the disaster of Blue Licks. 

Of this last signal and sanguinary contest by the invading enemy upon 
Kentucky soil, so fatal to many of our brave ancestors, and yet so like an 
expiring effort of desperation on the part of the implacable foe, we find 
a graphic account from an able and eloquent pen : ^ 

"The Lidian chiefs were dispirited by the failure of the expedition, and 
insisted on a retreat before the arrival of large numbers should make retreat 
too dangerous. The prompt response already shown warned them that the 
settlements would send in all their best men, and they felt how hazardous 
their position might become. 

"Girty yielded reluctantly, or with assumed reluctance, to the demand 
for retreat, and siege was raised on the 17th in the forenoon. 2 Camp-fires 
were left burning, and pieces of meat were upon the roasting-sticks. The 
retreat was ostentatious, and it was supposed that the Indians were in full 
march for their towns beyond the Ohio. The Indians trailed their way 
silently, yet defiantly, northward, inviting better opportunity. 

1 Colonel John Mason Brown's oration at Blue Licks' Centennial. 

2 Boone's letter of 30th of August, 1782, to the Governor of Virginia. 



THE PURSUIT AND MARCH. 207 

"The remainder of the day was spent by the Kentuckians in assuring 
c themselves that the retreat was genuine and not a mere pretense, and in de- 
£ liberation as to the advisabiUty of immediate pursuit. 

"It does not appear that there was any serious diversity of opinion 
among the chiefs of the Kentuckians. A very large proportion of those 

- present bore commissions in the militia, and the militia of Kentucky at that 
> time was a body constantly employed on serious duty. The haste of the 

summons, the urgency of the danger, and the determined purpose of them 

- all, made the question of military rank the least important of their consid- 
erations. In the companies that were extemporized, captains and lieutenants 

, took places in the ranks without quibble or contention. It would seem 

i likely, too, considering the smallness of the force, and its composition of 
citizen soldiery, that the interchange of opinion was general and free. There 
were few present whose experience of frontier life did not warrant their 
joining in the discussion. The pursuit was resolved on, and the march 

; commenced. 

"Following the well-defined trace south of and not far from the present 
turnpike road that connects Lexington with Paris and Maysville, the pur- 
suers crossed David's Fork and the dividing ridge; thence down Houston 

:; creek and along the north bank the route lay until at a point near the 
present village of Houston, in Bourbon county, it forms one with the great 
main road reaching north-eastward. 

"The evidences of the Indians' sudden retreat were numerous and 
seemed conclusive. In the abandoned camp the fires were left burning and 
cooked meat untasted. The trail was compact, as though the entire force 
had been called in to march off iji a body. It was not a great while before 
the line of the Indian retreat was certainly ascertained, and it became clear 
that, instead of turning northward at some point near the present town of 
Paris and pushing by the shortest road, past where now are built Cynthiana 
and Falmouth, for the mouth of the Little Miami and the Pickaway towns, 
the Indians were moving along the main trace toward the Lower Blue 
Licks. They were following the straight path that the unerring instinct 
of the buffalo indicated to our engineers as the route for a great thorough- 
fare. 

"Tke night of the i8th brought renewed consultation, for Stoner's creek 
had been crossed near Martin's station, three miles north of where Paris 
now is, and Hinkson forded near Millersburg, and the little army halted 
on the trail. The camp-fires passed during the day, marking the place 
where the Indians had halted for the previous night, had been noted by the 
observant pioneers. Their number was few, and they were near together, 
giving ground for the inference that the Indians either felt confidence in 
their superior numbers, and were inviting pursuit, or that they were guard- 
ing cautiously against an attack by the whites. The trees along the trace 
showed marks of the tomahawk, and this betokened a march free from 



2o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

hurry and trepidation. Perhaps, thought some of the pioneers, Girty does 
not know that he is followed, and it may be that hf another day's rapid 
marching he can be surprised in his camp. Perhaps, thought they, he 
fancies the perilous country already passed, and the safe bank of the Ohio 
so near as to put him beyond reach,. The able renegade had so well con- 
ducted his force that the most experienced pioneer could not divine that he 
meant an ambuscade and fight. 

"Girty showed a soldiership in retreating by a new route, for Clark, with 
a good force, was at the Falls of the Ohio, and might well take him in flank 
if he passed down to the mouth of the Licking. Boone and Todd were 
trained in Indian war — as, indeed, were all their comrades — and rightly 
interpreted the motive that controlled Girty. The pursuit up to the time of 
the battle was justified by soundest considerations. 

"The march, which had already traversed that lovely succession of hill 
and dale, fairest of all fair views to the Kentuckian's eye, and had reached 
beyond the present county of Bourbon, was resumed with the coming of 
dawn. 

"Monday, the 19th of August, came. As the morning advanced, the 
speed of the pursuit was quickened, for many unerring signs betokened that 
the enemy could not be very far distant. Still, all was order and circumspec- 
tion, for the leaders were as prudent as they were brave, and every man was 
a veteran. The advance continued, still following the trace and the well- 
marked route of the foe. Yet, not an Indian was seen nor any preparation 
for resistance observed. Farther still the Kentuckians pressed on, vigilant 
against surprise and wary of ambuscade, and still the enemy were un- 
reached. 

"But as the column approached the Licking river the advanced guard 
caught the first sight of Indians on the further bank. Girty had safely 
crossed the stream, and felt that he had the vantage ground, as well as su- 
periority of numbers. 

" The Indians, when first seen, were leisurely ascending the rocky ridge 
that leads up from the river on its northern bank. They were but few. They 
paused, and seemed to regard the white* with indifference, and then disap- 
peared over the crest of yonder hill. 

"The trace which the pursuers had followed, coming down to the stream 
by a narrow and difficult approach on the south bank, led up the bare ac- 
clivity on the other side, surmounting its crest where a narrow ridge gave 
passage way between two ravines that spread on either side, with easy sweep 
toward the stream. 

"Here it was that the Indians chose their battlefield. A better choice 
could not have been made, whether the purpose were to resist an assault or 
lay an ambuscade. The warriors were carefully secreted within the dense 
shrubbery that filled the ravines, and there awaited the approach of the 
whites. 



BOONE S ADVICE TO THE WARRIORS. 20$ 

: "The pioneers stopped on the southern bank for consultation. It must 

[ be plain to all who will recall the circumstances of the assembly and the 
march, and bear in mind that the whole country was aroused and in motion 

J to re-enforce them, that the pioneers had but little cause to fear an attack. 

, Their position was strong. Flanked by difficult hills, and protected by the 

, river in their front, they might well have counted on repelling assault and 
holding good their own until the coming up of their friends would enable 

^ them to take the aggressive. There was no cause or reason for retreat; but 
the question of advance was one of profound moment. 

"Whose voice should have weight in such a crisis? Whose counsel 

, should control or whose opinion govern ? All eyes turned to the veteran, 
who, better than living man, knew the foe before them, and all listened with 
respectful attention to the brief reply he gave when interrogated by Todd. 
His plan was simple. It was to await the arrival of Logan, already on the 

[ march with more than two hundred men. With such a re-enforcement, 
the Indians could be attacked and victory fairly expected. And when Logan 
should arrive, the old veteran further counseled that the attack be not made 
directly up the rocky point, but by flanking the hills and ravines, so obvi- 
ously dangerous. 

" Boone knew the locality perfecdy well, for he had repeatedly visited it, 
and four years before had been captured near the spot and led away a pris- 
oner. He was entitled by every right to advise, and his advice met the 
approval of all the wiser and cooler men present. 

"In this critical moment, the age and experience of Daniel Boone in 
Indian warfare insensibly attracted the attention of every one present to 
solicit his advice at this perilous moment, to obtain which Colonel Todd ad- 
dressed Colonel Boone as follows : ' Skilled in Indian warfare, and familiar 
with the ground in the vicinity of this place, we require your opinion on the 

; expediency of attacking the enemy in their present position.' 

"The veteran woodsman, with his usual unmoved gravity, replied that 
their situation was critical and delicate; that the force opposed to them was 
undoubtedly numerous and ready for battle, as might readily be seen from 
the leisurely retreat of the few Indians who had appeared upon the crest 
of the hill; that he was well acquainted with the ground in the neighbor- 

j hood of the Lick, and was apprehensive that an ambuscade was formed at 
the distance of a mile in advance, where two ravines, one upon each side 
of the ridge, ran in such a manner that a concealed enemy might assail them 
at once, both in front and flank, before they were apprised of the danger. 
It would be proper, therefore, to do one of two things — either to await the 
arrival of Logan, who was now undoubtedly on his march to join them, or 
if it was determined to attack without delay, that one-half of their number 
should march up the river, which there bends in an elliptical form, cross at 
the rapids, and fall upon the rear of the enemy while the other division 
attacked in front. At any rate, he strongly urged the necessity of recon- 

14 



2IO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

noitering the ground carefully before the main bod}' crossed the river. The 
advice was such as seemed reasonable to the more thoughtful present. 

" In all the remarkable traits which the unique character of Boone pre- 
sents, none is more striking than his constant self-possession and calm good 
sense in every emergency. No peril ever overcame his judgment; no dis- 
aster impaired his presence of mind. An unvarying tranquillity gave force 
to his advice, as it so often secured success to his boldest undertakings. No 
man in our history has so singularly blended the constant pursuit of a haz- 
ardous life with a contemplative nature and a prudent habit of thought. 

"It is quite evident from the written accounts that have been prepared 
by various hands, and from the oral traditions which still linger in families 
that draw their descent from the pioneers — those stories of the olden time 
now dwelling in the memories of aged men as their grandfathers told them 
years ago — that the better opinion coincided with Boone's counsel. 

" Todd and Trigg and Harlan certainly wished to await Logan's arrival. 
The enemy had been brought to bay, as it seemed, and a decisive battle 
might be fought, with every hope of success should the re-enforcements 
arrive. The concurrent judgment of the four — Boone, Todd, Trigg, and 
Harlan — decided the question, for they were the superior officers; and, what 
was more important in such a command, it satisfied the rank and file that 
to wait was expedient and not inconsistent with the truest courage, for the 
courage of each was proverbial, and the conduct of each had been proven 
in many ways and amid many dangers. 

"The name of Boone was the synonym for all adventure and bold cau-lj 
tion. The others were worthy to be his compeers. 

"The four officers chief in rank agreed that Logan's arrival should be 
waited for. The junior officers. Majors Levi Todd and McBride, Captains 
Patterson, Gordon, Bulger, and others acquiesced. The entire command 
was content to obey the order to halt from those whose courage and judg- 
ment they implicitly trusted. 

"But there was one man whose restless and insubordinate nature and 
rash indifference to danger could not brook the delay. To his charge has 
justly been laid the disorder, the tumultuous and blind rush, the heedless 
and unhappy disregard of Boone's counsel and Todd's commands, the brave 
lives lost on that sad day. 

"The name of Major Hugh McGary will be remembered until Ken- 
tuckians forget the story of the pioneers. It will be mentioned whenever 
men tell of the battle of the Blue Licks. It will remain conspicuous in the 
annals of our earlier times. Even his virtues of courage and endurance 
come down to us, and will be further transmitted in our history, clouded 
by the great misfortune of which he was the cause. He was a rude, brave, 
violent man. No early discipline, either of the family or the school, had 
taught him deference to the authority of others, or formed the habit of 
self-control. The resolute and tranquil philosophy of Boone he could not 



m'GARY'S impetuosity. 211 

understand. The large and noble character of Logan was beyond his com- 
prehension, and he despised the accomplishments of Todd and Trigg. His 
daring was proverbial, and his adventures as rash as they were numerous. 
But his bravest feats were ofttimes the outgrowth of mere turbulence, and 
soiled by the inspiration of personal revenge. He rose not to the noble 
thought that a new people and a great State were to honor in the coming 
years those who, with unselfish courage, should lay the foundations of the 
Commonwealth. 

"He was foremost in every peril, and prominent in every strife. His 
hot blood made him dangerous even to his friends. But the courage and 
reckless daring with which he courted peril made him a man of mark and 
value in those dangerous times. 

" McGary chose to construe as a want of proper courage the obvious 
prudence of his superior officers. A few hot words passed as he spoke 
with Todd and Boone, and then, with headlong impetuosity, he turned his 
horse's head and dashed into the stream, calling on all who were not cow- 
ards to follow him. 

"The unfortunate example was contagious. Whether it was that they 
imagined that the order for advance had been given, or whether because 
of mere unreasoning enthusiasm, the hunter-soldiers followed with a shout, 
and rushed in disorder across the ford. It was in vain that Todd and Boone 
and Trigg and Harlan endeavored to restrain the excited crowd. Their 
men were deaf to entreaty and to command. The entire force passed the 
river, and they had no choice but to follow. With utmost difficulty a halt 
was induced, after the crossing was accomplished, on yon low ground where 
the ridge comes down with its rocky base to join the narrow plain. Dis- 
order reigned, and authority had been defied. 

"The barrier of the river in front had been abandoned. The flanking 
hills and the narrow ford, that forbade attack so long as the river inter- 
vened, could no longer afford protection to the little band. 

"The river and its difficult passage was now in their rear. No kindly 
shelter covered either flank. In front was the rocky acclivity rising with 
fugged ascent to the point where the buffalo-trace disappeared over the hill- 
top, its nakedness relieved only by the thick-branched and stunted cedars, 
that made it the more difficult to surmount. 

"To recross the river was impossible. McGary's insubordination had 
so infected the men that it was not to be thought of. To remain in the new 
position was madness, even had the contest been one of equal numbers. 
No choice was left but to advance to where fortune should offer a new and 
safer halting-place. With customary prudence, Boone advised a careful 
examination toward the front. The bold men sent forward to reconnoiter 
passed up the ridge, inspecting as they went either side of the road. They 
examined with care those converging ravines, and the narrow way between 
them at the crest. Still further they went, until they had explored a half 



212 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

mile or more beyond. They were faithful men and brave; they were chosen 
because of their experience. How came it that they made report that no 
enemy was to be found? 

"Girty handled his Indians with ability and firmness. His clear judg- 
ment appreciated the prospect for a victory that the locality afforded him. 
He had enough of authority to cause his Indians to fall back noiselessly^ 
and rapidly on either side — back from the sides of the trace and from the 
ravines, into the dense and secure cover of the adjoining hills. There they 
lay in perfect silence and secrecy while the reconnoissance was made. As- 
the scouts passed in return toward the river, the Indians, in perfect order 
and in dead silence, moved back to their chosen positions. 

" It was a masterly move, most difficult of performance, and most com- 
pletely executed. It stamps Girty as a soldier, and his powers of command 
as extraordinary. 

"The report of the reconnoitering party was explicit and satisfactory.. 
All had right to accept it; none discredited it. Even Boone's caution^ 
seems tb have been satisfied, and his apprehension allayed. The advance 
commenced. 

"Ranged in a single line, its center pursuing the trace, while on either 
hand the flanks extended beyond it, the little army was told off into three- 
divisions. Boone was on the left, there toward the west, and with him 
Patterson ;i Trigg was on the right, and with him the Harrodsburg men;. 
Todd remained in the center in general command, while Major McGary 
had charge of that part of the line. In front of all, Harlan, with twenty- 
five mounted men, moved up the trace as an advanced guard. The difficult 
march up the hill continued until Harlan had reached the crest, where the 
ravines converge. The main body was just surmounting the slope. The- 
Kentuckians were well within the net, and the murderous fire began. 

"The Indians, from their secure cover, and at short range, began their 
battle on the right. Trigg and nearly all the men from Harrodsburg fell in 
a brief space. Instantly Harlan was fired upon from both flanks, and he 
and all his men but three were killed. The sudden and effective fire of 
the enemy checked the advance and threw the line into confusion. Girty 
instandy extended his line, and turned the flank where Trigg had fallen, 
and the Indians in overpowering numbers rushed forward with tomahawk, 
and rifle. 

"The resistance was desperate but hopeless. Todd rallied his men with 
voice and example. His white horse made him a conspicuous mark, and 
it was not many minutes before he received a death-shot through the body. 
Mounting again, careless of his mortal wound, he renewed his effort to hold 
the men around the spot where Boone was still contending on the left. But. 
the day was lost. He was seen to reel in his saddle, the blood gushing from 
his wounds, and he fell. 

1 Colonel Patterson's Journal. 



a 



COURAGE OF NETHERLAND. 



213 



"The defeat became a rout. As may well be seen, the place afforded 
no shelter for a defeated force. The only hope of safety was in recrossing 
the river and regaining the ground which had been so rashly abandoned. 
Last to leave the field was Boone and his young son, mortally wounded, 
and borne in his father's arms until death ended his agonies." 

1 Several hundred Indians were between him and the ford, to which the 
great mass of the fugitives were bending their flight, and to which the atten- 
tion of the savages was principally directed. Being intimately acquainted 
with the ground, he, together with a few friends, dashed into the ravine 
which the Indians had occupied, but which most of them had now left to 
join in the pursuit. After sustaining one or two heavy fires, and baffling 
one or two small parties who pursued him for a short distance, he crossed 
the river below the ford by swimming, and entering the woods at a point 
where there was no pursuit, returned by a circuitous route to Bryan's station. 
In the meantime, the great mass of the victors and vanquished crowded the 
bank of the ford. 

The slaughter was great in the river. The ford was crowded with horse- 
men and foot and Indians, all mingled together. Some were compelled to 
seek a passage above by swimming; some, who could not swim, were over- 
taken and killed at the edge of the water. A man named Netherland, who 
had formerly been strongly suspected of cowardice, here displayed a cool- 
ness and presence of mind equally noble and unexpected. Being finely 
mounted, he had outstripped the great mass of the fugitives and crossed the 
river in safety. A dozen or twenty horsemen followed him, and, having 
placed the river between them and the enemy, showed a disposition to con- 
tinue their flight, without regard to the safety of their friends who were on 
foot and still struggling with the current. 

Netherland instantly checked his horse, and, in a loud voice, called 
upon his companions to halt, fire upon the Indians, and save those who 
were still in the stream. The party instantly obeyed; and, facing about, 
poured a close and fatal discharge of rifles upon the foremost of the pur- 
suers. The enemy instantly fell back from the opposite bank, and gave 
time for the harassed and miserable footmen to cross in safety. The check, 
however, was but momentary. Indians were seen crossing in great numbers 
above and below, and the flight again became general. Most of the foot 
left the great buffalo track, and, plunging into the thickets, escaped by a 
■circuitous route to Bryan's station. 

But little loss was sustained after crossing the river, although the pursuit 
Avas urged keenly for twenty miles. From the battle-ground to the ford the 
loss was very heavy. 

■'An instance of generous self-sacrifice for a friend, which took place on 
the retreat, is worthy of historic mention here, from its intrinsic moral beauty 
and for the relief it affords from the repulsive tale of slaughter. Colonel 

I McClung's Sketches. 2 Marshall, pp. 137-143. 



214 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Patterson relates the facts in his journal, recently found at Dayton, Ohio: 
" Having a number of our best men and officers killed and wounded, and the 
enemy continuing firm and fast turning our right, we were ordered to fall back 
slowly, and return their fire jto hold them in check, so as to gain and cross 
the river. By the time we got within one hundred yards of the bank, and 
that much below the ford, fifteen of the retreating men, together with the 
writer, could see no way of escaping, yet trying and defending ourselves, 
the enemy being on every side except the river. At this critical moment 
Aaron Reynolds rode up to me on horseback, and without asking if I would 
accept, he dismounted on the right side, saying, 'Get on and make your 
escape.' I mounted, and he, with others, ran into the river and made his 
escape with some of the others, while I rode directly to the ford, passing by 
two Indians who were behind a tree close to the river, and I was the last of 
our men that did get across the river. 

' ' I directly fell in with some of our men and a wounded man on horse- 
back held on by another, who rode behind him, and continued with them 
some time, directing them the route to take in order to shun the enemy. 
Thus making toward the road, two Indians had got abreast of me; the one 
on horseback dismounted and shot at me at about fifty yards distant, but 
missed his mark, and I kept on and arrived at home the next day; but Aaron 
Reynolds had arrived before I did, and related how he had furnished me 
with his horse on the retreat, but was not credited, and I was considered 
among the slain; but my arrival confirmed the story, and I, with all who 
heard the story, thought it incredible that a man unhurt and well mounted 
would, without solicitation, calmly dismount and give up his horse. History 
scarcely furnishes a parallel. At this distant time, in looking back, I con- 
sider it like Aaron Reynolds giving his life to save mine. The first 
opportunity I had, in the presence of others, I asked him what was his 
motive in giving up his horse. His answer was then, and he repeated the 
same to others afterward, that from the time I reproved him for swear- 
ing (done some months before), he felt a singular and continued attachment 
for me. As to making my escape, in the most favorable situation of an 
active body it would have been very doubtful, while I, having been some 
years before severely wounded, was rendered still more unable to have made 
my escape; and I look upon it as certain that but for the above interposi- 
tion of Divine mercy, the bones that are now writing this narrative would 
have lain among stones that cover the earth on the bare hill about the Blue 
Licks, with those of many more who never were buried. 

"Aaron Reynolds, having safely recrossed the river, sat down on a log to 
adjust his moccasins ; and, being thus hastily and busily engaged with his head 
down, before he had any notice of their approach, two Indians had fast hold 
of him, and, taking his rifle from him, one held him while the other went 
after another man who was then in view, but trying to escape. Reynolds, 
seeing the frizen of the Indian's gun up, supposed that it was not loaded; 



II 



LOGAN ARRIVES WITH RE-ENFORCEMENTS. 215 

he sprang from his grasp and made his escape through the underbrush, and 
to the discomfiture of his dusky guard." 

The loss in this battle was heavier than had been experienced in any 
contest that had ever taken place with the savages on Kentucky soil before, 
iand carried distress and mourning into almost half the homes in Kentucky. 
Of the one hundred and eighty men engaged, sixty were killed and seven 
taken prisoners. Colonels Todd and Trigg were especially deplored for 
. their eminent social and private, as well as their public, worth. Of Major 
, Harlan, it was the common sentiment that no officer was braver and none 
more beloved in the field. 

The action of Major McGary in precipitating the battle seems unpar- 
donably reckless. It is due to his memory to say that he is reported to 
have counseled a delay at Bryan's until Logan could arrive with his power- 
ful re-enforcement. This was tauntingly rejected by others superior in 
command, on the plea that such delay would enable the Indians to place 
themselves over the Ohio river before they could be overtaken. The 
impetuous McGary fiercely resented the taunt, and, in a spirit of retalia- 
tion, determined to force the battle at the hazard of any consequence to his 
country. The inconsiderate rashness was atoned for in the fearful sacrifice. 
His excuses severely condemn but offer no mitigation for his folly. 

While all this was happening, Logan's command of nearly four hundred 
men were pushing forward, within less than a day's march of the fated field 
of battle. The vanguard of this force had passed Bryan's, on its way in 
pursuit, when it was met by the fugitives with the full intelligence of the 
disaster. They fell back on Bryan's until the rear came up, and then, late 
in the evening, began a march for the battle-ground to meet the enemy, if 
there; if not, to bury the dead. At noon the next day, they arrived at the 
spot. The savages were gone, and only the dead bodies of the slain com- 
rades, some mangled by tomahawk and scalping-knife, some torn by wild 
beasts, and others the prey of vultures, signalized the carnage of the 19th. 
Each man had his friends and kindred among the slain, and sought them 
for the solemn rites of burial, and for some memento of recognition for the 
disconsolate at home. 

^ There was a traditional report commonly credited, the authority for 
which is sustained by Boone in his autobiography, that the Indians, on 
counting the dead on either side, found four more of their number slain 
than of the whites, and, therefore, ordered four of their prisoners out of 
seven to be murdered in a very barbarous manner, to make the loss of life 
even. The remaining prisoners, Yocum, Rose, and McMurtry, were borne 
across the river and subjected to incredible hardships, being forced to run 
the gauntlet several times. They were at last condemned and tied to the 
stake, and the fagots kindled to burn them. A furious storm of thunder 
and lightning, with rain, came on just in time to quench the fire and save 

I Boone's Narrative. 



2l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

them. The savages believed the offended Great Spirit to have interposed, 
and, struck with awe and reverence, dared not rekindle the fire. There- 
after they were treated more kindly. 

The main body of the Indian army recrossed the Ohio with a few 
prisoners, many scalps, and some booty; but some of the allies, taking their 
route through the settlements in Jefferson county, could not forego the 
temptation to increase their scalps and prisoners. Their sign was seen 
before they struck the intended victims a blow. From Collins we learn 
that : 

"Intelligence was promptly communicated to Colonel Floyd, who in- 
stantly ordered out a party of militia to scour the country where the savages 
were suspected to be lurking. Some of the party were from Kincheloe's 
station, on Simpson's creek, in Spencer county, which consisted of six or 
seven families. On the ist of September, the militia, unable to discover 
any Indians, dispersed and returned to their homes. There had been no 
alarm at Kincheloe's station during the absence of the men, and upon 
reaching home late in the evening, greatly fatigued and without appre- 
hension of danger, they retired to rest. At the dead hour of night, when 
the inmates of the station were wrapt in the most profound sleep, the In- 
dians made a simultaneous attack upon the cabins of the station, and, 
breaking open the doors, commenced an indiscriminate massacre of men, 
women, and children. The unconscious sleepers were awakened but to be 
cut down, or to behold their friends fall by their side. A few only, availing 
themselves of the darkness of the night, escaped the tomahawk or captivity. 
Among those who effected their escape was Mrs. Davis, whose husband 
was killed, and another woman whose name is not given. They fled to the 
woods, where they were fortunately joined by a lad by the name of Ash, 
who conducted them to Cox's station. 

"William Harrison, after placing his wife and a young woman of the 
family, under the floor of the cabin, made his escape under cover of the 
darkness. He remained secreted in the neighborhood until he was satisfied 
the Indians had retired, when he returned to the cabin and liberated his 
wife and her companion from their painful situation. 

"Thomas Randolph occupied one of the small cabins, with his wife and 
two children, one an infant. The Indians succeeded in breaking into his 
house, and, although they outnumbered him four or five to one, he stood 
by his wife and children with heroic firmness. He had succeeded in killing 
several Indians, when his wife and the infant in her arms were both mur- 
dered by his side. He instantly placed his remaining child in the loft, then 
mounting himself, made his escape through the roof. As he alighted on 
the ground from the roof of the cabin, he was assailed by two of the savages 
whom he had just forced out of the house. With his knife he inflicted a 
severe wound upon one, and gave the other a stunning blow with the empty 
gun, when they both retreated. Freed from his foes, he snatched up his 



II 



KINDNESS OF AN INDIAN. Ziy 

child, plunged into the surrounding forest, and was soon beyond the reach 
•of danger. 

"Several women and children were cruelly put to death after they were 
made prisoners, on the route to the Indian towns. On the second day of 
her captivity, Mrs. Bland, one of the prisoners, made her escape in the 
"bushes. Totally unacquainted with the surrounding country, and destitute 
•of a guide, for eighteen successive days she rambled through the woods, 
without seeing a human face, without clothes, and subsisting upon sour 
grapes and green walnuts, until she became a walking skeleton. On the 
■eighteenth day she was accidentally discovered and taken to Linn's station, 
where, by kind attention and careful nursing, her health and strength were 
soon restored." 

The situation of Mrs. Polk, another prisoner, with four children, was 
not less pitiable. She was in a state of extreme delicate health, and com- 
pelled to walk until she became almost incapable of motion. She was then 
threatened with death, and the tomahawk brandished over her head by a 
ferocious Indian, when another, who saw it, interposed and begged her 
life, took her in his care, mounted her on a horse, with two of her children, 
and conducted her safely to Detroit. Here she was purchased by a British 
trader, well treated, and permitted to write to her husband, who was absent 
from the station at the time of her capture. On receipt of her letter, he 
immediately repaired to Detroit, obtained his wife and five children, and 
returned with them safe to Kentucky. After the peace of the ensuing 
year, the other prisoners were also liberated and returned home. 

The deadly fight of Estill near Mount Sterling, Holder's defeat, the 
?iege at Bryan's, Blue Licks, Kincheloe's, and other scenes of conflict, 
•evinced the aggressive temper of the Indians for the year 1782. 

The catastrophe of Blue Licks bore with it a profound significance, far 
beyond the ordinary wage of the batde itself. The terminus of the Revo- 
lutionary war in view, and peace assured, the transmontane Americans 
plausibly hoped for an era of undisturbed security, and of domestic tran- 
quillity, which, since their first advent to the forest wilds, had been denied 
them. Surely, in good faith would the English aim to establish amicable 
relations upon the borders; and now that all motive to incite the Indians to 
indiscriminate murder and pillage of the whites was apparently removed, 
the savages would find it to their best interests to cultivate the friendship of 
the Kentuckians. As is well said by an able authority : ^ 

"The spring of the year 1782 opened upon what, indeed, seemed an era 
of prosperity and security for the West. The surrender of Cornwallis at 
Yorktown in the preceding autumn had ended the War of Independence. 
Peace with England brought with it a recognized American tide to the great 
North-west as far as the lakes and beyond Detroit. The splendid dream of 
Clark, which none but Jefferson seemed fully to comprehend, was fulfilled 

1 Colonel Brown's oration at Blue Licks. 



2l8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

in the cession of an empire. Strong men had come in numbers to seek 
fortune and adventure in the brakes and forests of Kentucky. Brave 
women encountered the hardships of the frontier, and followed husbands 
and fathers into the wilderness. Families had been established, and children 
had been born to the pioneers. Already was cradled the generation of 
Kentucky riflemen destined to crush, in after years, the great confederation 
of Tecumseh, and to assure the northern boundary of the Union. " 

The hope of peace seemed to wither in the budding over the invasion of 
Girty's army and the dire results. It was well nigh an agony of suspense, 
as anguish and wail went up from bereaved hearts in almost every cabin in 
the bluegrass of Kentucky. The feeling akin to despair followed the 
reaction from buoyant hope to sorrowful disappointment. 

The following memorial letter, of date September nth, was addressed to 
Governor Harrison, of Virginia: ^ 

**The officers, civil as well as military, of this county, beg the attentioa 
of your Excellency and the honorable council. The number of the enemy 
that lately penetrated into our county, their behavior, and, adding to this, 
our late unhappy defeat at the Blue Licks, fill us with the greatest concera 
and anxiety. The loss of our worthy officers and soldiers who fell there, 
the 19th of August, we sensibly feel, and deem our situation truly alarming. 
We can scarcely behold a spot of earth but what reminds us of the fall of 
some fellow-adventurer massacred by savage hands. Our number of 
militia decreases. Our widows and orphans are numerous; our officers and 
worthiest men fall a sacrifice. In short, sir, our settlement, hitherto formed 
at the expense of treasure and much blood, seems to decline, and, if some- 
thing is not speedily done, we doubt not will wholly be depopulated. The 
executive, we believe, thinks often of us, and wishes to protect us; but, sir, 
we believe that any military operations that for eighteen months have been 
carried on, in consequence of orders from the executive, have rather been 
detrimental than beneficial. Our militia are called on to do duty in a 
matter that has a tendency to protect Jefferson county, or rather Louisville, 
a town without inhabitants, and a fort situated in such a manner that an 
enemy coming with a design to lay waste our country would scarcely come 
within one hundred miles of it, and our own frontiers open and unguarded. 
Our inhabitants are discouraged. It is now near two years since the division 
of the county, and no surveyor has ever appeared among us but has, by 
appointment from time to time, deceived us. Our principal expectation of 
strength is from him. During his absence from the county, claimants of 
land disappear, when, if otherwise, they would prove a source of additional 
strength. 

"We entreat the executive to examine into the cause and remove it 
speedily. If it is thought impracticable to carry the war into the enemy's 
country, the plan of building a garrison at the mouth of Limestone and 

1 Virginia Calendar, Vol III., p. 301. 



Logan's letter to governor Harrison. 219 

another at the mouth of Licking, formerly prescribed by your Excellency, 
might be again adopted and performed. A garrison at the mouth of Lime- 
stone would be a landing place for adventurers from the back parts of 
Pennsylvania and Virginia, adjacent to a large body of good land which 
would be speedily settled. It would be m the enemy's principal crossing- 
place, not more than fifty miles from Lexington, our largest settlement, and 
might be readily furnished with provision from above till they would be 
supplied from our settlements here. Major Netherland, we exp'^ct, will 
deliver this. He will attend to give any particular information that may be 
deemed necessary. Humanity toward inhabitants, destitute of hope of any 
other aid, will surely induce your Excellency to spare from the interior parts 
of the State two hundred men and a few pieces of artillery for those pur- 
poses above mentioned." 

This was signed by Daniel Boone, Levi Todd, Robert Patterson, R. 
Netherland, William Henderson, John Craig, and others. 

Of the same tenor and in the like spirit, in a letter of August 31st, 
Colonel Benjamin Logan writes Governor Harrison :i 

"From the situation of the ground on which our men were drawn (the 
plan whereof I have taken the liberty to inclose), I hardly know how it was 
possible for any to escape. I am inclined to believe that, when your Ex- 
cellency and council become acquainted with the military operations in this 
country, that you will not think them so properly conducted as to answer 
the general interest of Kentucky. From the accounts we had received by 
prisoners who had escaped this spring, we were confident of an invasion 
from the Detroit Indians. Common safety then made some scheme of 
defense necessary. For this purpose, I was called upon by General Clark 
to attend a council, and, after consulting over matters, it was determined to 
build a fort at the mouth of Licking. Shortly, I received his orders for one 
hundred men to attend this business, with a certain number from Fayette. 
Before the day of the rendezvous, I was instructed to send the men to the 
Falls of the Ohio, in order to build a strong garrison, and a row-galley, 
thus by weakening one end to strengthen another. The upper part of the 
country was left exposed, and the enemy, intercepting our designs, brought 
their intended expedition against the frontiers of Fayette. The immense 
expenses incurred by the State in this western country we know are enough 
to prevent the Government from giving us any further aid; but when your 
Excellency and council are informed that the people have never been bene- 
fited by those expenditures, we still hope your compassion will be extended 
to a detached and distressed part of your country, as it is not in the power 
of the people to answer the misapplication of anything by a proper officer. 
General Irwin, commanding at Fort Pitt, as a continental officer, might 
probably be more assistance to this country, could he receive proper supplies 
from the State of Virginia, than any other measure that could be adopted, 

I Virginia Calendar, Vol. IIL, p. 2£o. 



2 20 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

as he has the same enemies to encounter that trouble us, and stores of every 
kind seem to be of Uttle account to us, ammunition excepted. Colonel 
Trigg being killed, there is a field officer wanting in this county; however, 
I am at a loss how to proceed on the occasion, for all our magistrates have 
been killed except three, and there can be no court to send a recom- 
mendation. Colonel Harrod, who formerly acted as a colonel, and who, 
agreeable to seniority, ought to have received a commission, is now in 
being, and I think a very proper person for that purpose." 

We venture to add an extract of a letter of August 26, 1782, from Col- 
onel Levi Todd to his brother, Captain Robert Todd, throwing some light 
upon the closing scenes of the battle, and giving a fuller list of the slain 
than has heretofore been published in history : ^ 

"Our men suffered much in the retreat, many Indians having mounted 
our abandoned horses, and having an open woods to pass through to the 
river. Several were killed in the river. Efforts were made to rally, but in 
vain. He that could remount a horse was well off; and he that could not, 
saw no time for delay. Our brother received a ball in his left breast, and 
was on horseback when the men broke. He took a course I thought dan- 
gerous; and as I never saw him afterward, I suppose he never got over 
the river. Colonel Trigg, Major Harlan, Major Bulger, Captains McBride, 
Gordon, Kinkead, and Overton fell upon the ground; also our friend James 
Brown. Our number missing is about seventy-five. I think the number 
of the enemy was at least three hundred, but many of the men think five 
hundred. Colonel Logan, with five hundred men, went to the ground on 
the 24th, and found and buried about fifty of our dead men. They were 
all stripped naked, scalped, and mangled in- such a manner that it was hard 
to know one from another. Our brother was not known. 

"As people in different parts of the country will be anxious to know the 
names of the killed, I will add a list of what I can now remember: Colonel 
John Todd, Colonel Stephen Trigg, Major Silas Harlan, Major Edward Bul- 
ger, Captains William McBride, John Gordon, Joseph Kinkead, and Clufif 
Overton; Lieutenants William Givens, John Kennedy, Joseph Lindsey, and 
Rodgers; Ensign John McMurtry; Privates Francis McBride, John Price, 
James Ledgerwood, John Wilson, Isaac McCracken, Lewis Rose, Mathias 
Rose, Hugh Cunningham, Jesse Yocum, William Eadds, Esau Corn, Will- 
iam Smith, Henry Miller, Ezekiel Field, John Folley, John Fry, Val Stern, 
Andrew McConnell, James Brown (surgeon), William Harris, William Stew- 
art, William Stevens, Charles Ferguson, John Wilson, John O'Neal, John 
Stapleton, Daniel Greggs, Jervis Green, Drury Polley, William Robertson, 
Gilbert Marshall, James Smith, and Israel Boone." 

It is evident that a sentiment pervaded the people that interior Kentucky 
had been neglected by Clark in his measures of defense, while he was more 
absorbed in centralizing ail military strength and resources at Louisville, for 

I Virginia Calendar, Vol. til., p. 333. 



il 



PANEGYRIC OF THE SLAIN. 221 

the menace and retention of the North-west. But Clark's policy was always 
to strike the Indians at their homes. 

Here justice pleads with the historian to pause in the narrative of thrill- 
ing events, while the inspiration of noble virtues and heroic deeds bid to 
inscribe upon his pages, in perpetuam rei jnenwriam, the tribute of admira- 
tion and affection which every true Kentuckian would offer up, in honor 
of the gallant and brave pioneers who so unselfishly gave up their lives for 
their country and their countrymen. Like Hancock Taylor, Floyd, Christ- 
ian, and others, many gallant chieftains and soldiers at Blue Licks fell too 
early, in defense of homes and families, to have come to the full fruition of 
the peace and liberty for which they were so willing to toil, to sacrifice, to 
endure, and, if it must be, to die. 

Major Silas Harlan, one of the slain, was among the first of the pioneer 
settlers in Kentucky. With Harrod's party, he came in 1774; and since 
that date, had borne an active and prominent part in the continued warfare 
with the Indians. He was with Clark at Vincennes, where he won applause 
for his soldierly services, and where every comrade was a hero. He was 
not less interested in the political and domestic events of his day; and his 
name will be found on the list of citizens who signed the declaration of June 
20, 1776, forwarded to the Virginia Convention. 

Not less lamented was the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Trigg, 
though he more recently sought a home and place among the settlers. Just 
three years before, he had joined the foresters of the West, and cast his fortunes 
with theirs ; yet he was endowed with those qualities which readily win the 
confidence and friendship of men, and soon became popular in all the ranks 
of the life around him. Ready in every emergency, and brave and resolute 
in the execution of every duty, his comrades instinctively conceded to him 
a leadership in adventure. While thus respected for the dignity and virtues 
of superior merit, all gave to him the homage of sympathy and love. Even 
the oldest and ablest of the veteran leaders deferred to his judgment, and 
were rarely mistaken. Already had he ranked high among the immortal 
few of the devoted band around him ; and only untimely death arrested, on 
the fatal 19th of August, a career that promised to be most brilliant if life 
had been spared. 

Sad, as the saddest episode of the tragedy, was the death of Colone! 
John Todd, than whom there was no more devoted and gallant spirit among 
his comrades, and none with promise of a more honorable historic future in 
prospect. Though just passed his thirty-second year — seven of which were 
spent among the veteran pioneers who carved their way through the virgin 
forest — he had already written his name as indelibly for the pages of history 
as in the hearts of the people whom he so often and faithfully served. He 
was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, in 1750, adjacent to Exeter, 
the birthplace of Boone. His father was Scotch ; his mother, a Quakeress. 
He was one of the very few of superior education and culture who appeared 



22 2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

an actor among the earliest experiences upon the theater of the great west 
ern valley. He was carefully trained, in letters and scholarship, by an uncle, 
Rev. John Todd, a distinguished minister of the Presbyterian Church, of 
Virginia. 

He studied law under General Andrew Lewis, but soon after followed 
his preceptor as aid in the campaign which led to the battle of Point 
Pleasant and the invasion to the Scioto towns. Early the next year (1775), 
he joined Colonel Logan in the establishment of St. Asaph's station. In 
June, he was of a party who ventured farther into the wilderness beyond Green 
river and to the vicinity of Bowling Green. In 1776, he led the little party 
in the attempt to convey in the powder from Limestone which Clark had se- 
cured and shipped from Virginia, in which he came near forfeiting his life, 
with others of his men, to the vigilance and daring of the Indians. He bore 
conspicuous part with Clark in the North-west campaign, in the capture of 
Kaskaskia and Cahokia; and for faithful services and eminent ability was 
commissioned by the Governor of Virginia "Colonel Commandant and 
County Lieutenant" of Illinois county, with headquarters at Kaskaskia, 
though yet retaining the position of county lieutenant and colonel of militia 
for Fayette county. 

Combining natural abilities to refined and classic culture, with an easy 
adaptativeness to all demands and emergencies, the fell of no man of that 
day carried with it a greater shock to the country or a profounder sorrow to 
the people from the shores of the Potomac to the Mississippi. His loss to the 
future of his adopted country and people in this saddest crucial day of all 
their experiences, they could not estimate ; and with the sympathizing reader 
of to-day this loss can better be deplored than conjectured. ^ 

The spirit of aggressive retaliation was now aroused fiercely in General 
Clark, yet in chief command. To repeat the tactics of Hannibal, he pre- 
pared again to invade the Indian country. 2 He invited a meeting of the 
superior military officers of his brigade at the Falls, to make arrangements 
for an imposing expedition against the Indians. This council recommended 
a draft of men to make up any deficiency of volunteers and the impressment 
of provisions and horses where voluntary contributions were not sufficient. 
The spirit and patriotism of the country rendered these coercive measures 
unnecessary. Men and officers presented themselves with the utmost eager- 
ness ; and beeves, pack-horses, and other supplies poured in abundantly from 
those who could not personally join the expedition. In every case of prop- 
erty offered or impressed, a certificate of its valuation was given as evidence 
to its owner for future compensation, at that time deemed by no means cer- 
tain. 

Bryan's station was appointed the rendezvous for the upper part of the 
country, the Falls of the Ohio for the lower, and the mouth of Licking 
the point of union for the different detachments. General Clark assumed the 

I Colonel Brown's Oration. 2 Bradford's Notes, Sec. 14. 



A 



THE LAST OF THE INVASIONS. 223 

command, with Colonels Floyd and Logan under him. These officers, at 
the head of about one thousand mounted riflemen, assembled at the ap- 
pointed spot on the last of September. The expedition proceeded with the 
efficiency ever characteristic of its chief while in the pride of his energy, and 
reached the neighborhood of the first Indian town, and within half a mile of 
a camp which formed the rear of the triumphant party from the battle 
of the Blue Licks. An Indian straggler now discovered the hostile force, 
and gave the alarm of a mighty army on its march. 

The savage camp was immediately evacuated and the alarm conveyed to 
the different towns. This most unpropitious discovery left nothing but 
empty cabins and deserted fields to satisfy the resentment of the whites. 
The buildings were quickly fired and the corn-fields laid waste. Seven pris- 
oners were taken and three of the enemy killed in this expedition. It 
extended its ravages through Chillicothe, Pickaway, and Willstown with 
the same desolating effect. This campaign, trifling as its execution may 
seem, appears to have put an end to the formidable Indian invasions of 
Kentucky. After this period, it was only exposed to stragglers and small 
parties. Such an effect must be attributed to so overwhelming a display of 
force immediately after the disastrous battle of Blue Licks. 

White Oak station was located but a mile or two above Boonesborough 
and in the same valley. It was settled by some orderly people from Penn- 
sylvania not accustomed to Indian warfare. The consequence was that of 
ten or twelve men, all were killed but two or three. ^ Early this year 
Peter Duree moved his own and one or two other families farther out into 
the country toward Estill's. They had just gone into their new cabins 
when Indians attacked them and killed Duree and his son-in-law, Bullock, 
and his wife, the former falling in his cabin. Mrs. Duree, the only one left 
unhurt, shut and fastened the door, closed the eyes of her dying husband, 
and kept the Indians at bay by presenting a rifle through the crevices of the 
logs. Waiting some hours, and hearing no more of the savages, she sallied 
out, with an infant in her arms and a four-year-old boy to follow her, for the 
nearest station. Meeting some friends on the way, they returned to White 
Oak station in safety. In this year. Captain Nathaniel Hart was waylaid, 
slain, and scalped by a party of Indians, while riding near his farm in the 
vicinity of Boonesborough. Though pursued by Boone, the marauders 
escaped. 

Collins relates that: ^^^jn September, a roving band of Indians made 
their appearance in Hardin county and committed several depredations. 
Silas Hart, whose keen penetration and skill as an Indian fighter had ex- 
torted from them the name of Sharp-Eye, with other settlers, pursued 
them, and in the pursuit Hart shot their chief, while several others of the 
party were also killed. Only two of the Indians made good their escape. 
These conveyed to the tribe the intelligence of the chieftain's death. 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 530. 2 Vol. II., p. 314. 



2 24 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Vengeance was denounced by them against Sharp-Eye and his family 
for the death of the fallen chief, and speedily did the execution follow the 
threat. A short time thereafter a band of Indians, led by a brother of 
the slain chieftain, secretly and silently made their way into the neigh- 
borhood of Elizabethtown, where they emerged from their hiding places- 
and commenced their outrages. The neighborhood was instantly aroused, 
and Hart, always ready to assist in repelling the savage foe, was the first 
upon their trail. The whites followed in rapid pursuit for a whole day, but 
were unable to overtake them. As soon as they had turned toward, their 
homes the Indians, who must have closely watched their movements, tiirjied 
upon their trail, and followed therrt back to the settlements. Hart arrived at 
his home, five miles from Elizabethtown, about dark in the evening, and 
slept soundly through the night, for he had no apprehension of further 
Indian depredations. On the succeeding morning, just as the family were 
seating themselves to partake of their frugal meal, the band of Indians, who 
had been prowling round the house all night, suddenly appeared at the 
door, and the brother of the fallen chief shot Hart dead. The son of Hart, a 
brave youth only twelve years old, the instant he saw his father fall, grasped 
his rifle, and before the savage could enter the door sent a ball through 
his heart, thus avenging, almost as quick as thought, a beloved parent's 
death. The Indians then rushed to the door in a body, but the first who 
entered the threshold had the hunting-knife of the gallant boy plunged to 
the hilt in his breast and fell by the side of his leader. A contest so unequal 
could not, however, be maintained. The youth, with his mother and sister, 
were overpowered and hurried off to the Wabash as captives. The sister, 
from the feebleness of her constitution, was unable to bear the fatigue of a 
forced march, and the Indians dispatched her after proceeding a few miles. 
The mother and son were intended for a more painful and revolting death. 

"Upon the arrival of the party at the Wabash towns, preparations were 
made for the sacrifice, but an influential squaw, in pity for the tender years 
and in admiration of the heroism of the youth, interposed and saved his life. 
The mother was also saved from the stake by the interposition of a chief, 
who desired to make her his wife. The mother and son were ultimately re- 
deemed by traders and returned to their desolate home. Mrs. Hart, who 
has often been heard to declare that she would have preferred the stake to a 
union with the Indian chief, subsequently married a man named Country- 
man, and lived in Hardin to a very advanced age. Young Hart also lived 
to old age, in Missouri." 

The last chapter of the romance of eleven years of the life of Kenton 
was this year completed. We have read, in the first chapter, of his ardent 
passion at sixteen for a rosy lassie of the neighborhood of his father's home; 
of the successful suit and marriage to her of a rival; of the revenge that 
followed disappointed love; of the desperate rencounter of the rivals, and 
the murderous punishment of the successful suitor; and finally, of Kenton's 



ij 



SIMON KENTON RETURNS. 225 

flight to the West, and long banishment from home and the courts; an event- 
ful training for the eventful life that followed after. 

All these years he had supposed his antagonist dead, and himself a mur- 
derer and fugitive, with the Nemesis of that remorse that is said ever to 
torture the unhappy man guilty of the life-blood of his fellowman. Intel- 
ligence came by the accident of meeting some one from his boyhood home, 
not only that his father was yet living, but that William Veach, whom he left 
for dead, was alive and well. The joy of the relief that came to the heart 
of Kenton, as this great life-burden was lifted from off his conscience, is 
beyond the picturing of words. Thank God ! He was not a murderer ; and 
Simon Butler, the alias under which he had been known until now, was 
dropped, and the real name of Simon Kenton resumed. Hitherto, he dared 
not speak of his home and kindred, and the old reminiscences yet dear to 
him, or inquire about those he loved best on earth. He had expiated the 
wrongs and errors of youth by many years of mental doubt and suffering, 
in his long exile in the transmontane wilds. Now, he was innocent of the 
law, and could return once more to embrace his old father, to be friends 
with his former enemy, and to congratulate his old sweetheart over the inter- 
esting family group growing up around her as the fruitage of her husband's 
love. Kenton's wrongs were the accidents of a passionate and unrestrained 
temper, behind which there was much of generous sympathy and nobility 
of manhood, a type of character often met with in every-day life. 

' Late this year. Colonel Thomas Marshall and John May arrived as sur- 
veyors for the new counties of Fayette and Jefferson. One office was opened 
at Lexington, and another at Cox's station, in Jefferson county; the third 
we have already noticed. Now began that contention for lands which proved 
a greater scourge to the people of Kentucky, for long years after, than any 
visitation of pestilence or famine could have been to them. The root of the 
evil was in leaving to individuals, and to personal and rival interests, the 
surveys of the public lands, which ought to have been done alone by public 
authority. Could the surveys of the public lands of Virginia have been 
delayed till they could have been laid off by public appointment, the claims 
of her soldiers might all have been satisfied, and the residue might have 
been saved from the rapacity of remorseless speculators, and the proceeds 
of sale made to meet the deficiency of her exchequer after the exhaustive 
drain of the war of the Revolution. As one of the distinguished chief- 
justices of Kentucky has expressed, on the subject of the legal condition 
of landed estate produced by the ill-omened policy: "The melancholy effects 
on the peace and prosperity of private citizens, volumes could not portray. 
The breaking up of favorite homes, improved at the hazard of the owner's 
life, and fondly held to as a support for declining age, and a reward for 
affectionate children, swept away by refinements above popular compre- 
hension, produced most widespread discontent and distress; promoted a 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 104. 

15 



xa6 n&Tcmx <3f i^i^mciT, 

iin^^oiBS sfNTot, uid oitbeai a difs^ard of the k^id ngia in general, m-hk^ 
prescmed iisetf is <»dioias and afflkiiDg aspecxs. It is doBbdxil r~ ' '1 
wMt IbesDer 1uit« SBbserped ibe ends of insnoe and ij-ninsiiTrr. ha:! -5 

of dw courts be^ atbogetber closed to mis loiu: ^ - 

Jaoia.''" 

In die tail of ii»e Trear 1779, Samuel DaT-iei&. ^ 
cocomTr, Virginia, iDored ■*nth his iamilr to Kenru^y, .. 
jtt "Whidev's scaiiaru in Laiicoln coimTr, He sabfseqQeni. ^ -.. 
ca]kd Gilnier's lici, soasoe ax or seven miles trc^m said sts: 
a - " ' ■ - 

h.- _ , _ . - ^ - - . . 1:: 

serder _ jry siaie of secairiiy did noi last long; for in Aiunif;: 



-e.* I» aiK 



tins obrect, as 



&an& 



M-ich a faltering 



llie SL 



stade 10 find the direcnnn the Indians had taken; bnt, owm^ 
_ - .. ^_. _ ; __ - ... . _.:- _ _ _^ .. -^^^ "had dr 

■• the howrlxng of a dcg, ^-liich -arrerv 

■ie tain." 

.. .--. _- ;?teciian, a ...... „..,..: ... ^ , 

In X .to \^n 3i»e doc he was omih- -v 



l*ein£ in :he re-ar as spies, disrovered tht- ar>;Trv"»ac.h .■' :nr t-z-^v ::.r!i rz.: 



I 



a 



THE liKAVKRY <)V MRS. DAVIESS. 



227 



forward where the other Indians were with the famil)-. One of them i<nocked 
down the oldest boy, about eleven years old, and while in the act of scalp- 
ing him was fired at, but without effect. Mrs. Daviess, seeing the agitation 
and alarm of the Indians, saved herself and nursing child by jumping into 
<a sink-hole. The Indians fled in the most precipitate manner. In that 
way the family was rescued early in the day, without the loss of a single life 
and without any injury but that above mentioned. So soon as the boy had 
risen on his feet, the first word he spoke was, " Curse that Indian, he has 
got my scalp!" 

After the family had been rescued, Mrs. Daviess gave the following 
account of the manner in which the Indians had acted: A few minutes 
after her husband had opened the door and stepped out of the house, four 
Indians rushed in, while the fifth, as she afterward found out, was in pur- 
suit of her husband. Herself and children were in bed when the Indians 
entered the house. One of the Indians immediately made signs, by which 
she understood him to inquire how far was it to the next house. With an 
unusual presence of mind, knowing how important it would be to make the 
distance as far as possible, she raised both hands, first counting the fingers 
of one hand and then of the other, making a distance of eight miles. The 
Indians then signed to her that she must rise. She immediately got up, and 
as soon as she could dress herself commenced showing the Indians one 
article of clothing and then another, which pleased them very much, and in 
this way delayed them at the house nearly two hours. In the meantime, the 
Indian who had been in pursuit of her husband returned, with his hands 
stained with pokeberries, which he held up, and with some violent gestures 
and waving of his tomahawk, attempted to induce the belief that the stain 
on his hands was the blood of her husband, and that he had killed him. 
She was enabled at once to discover the deception, and instead of producing 
any alarm on her pmrt, she was satisfied that her husband had escaped unin- 
jured. 

After the savages had [)lundered the house of everything that they could 
-conveniently carry off with them, they started taking Mrs. Daviess and her 
■children, seven in number, as prisoners, along with them. Some of the 
-children were too young to travel as fast as the Indians wished, and discov- 
ering, as she believed, their intention to kill such of them as could not 
■conveniently travel, she made the two oldest boys carry them on their backs. 
The Indians, in starting from the house, were very careful to leave no signs 
of the direction they had taken, not even permitting the children to break a 
twig or weed as they passed along. They had not gone far before an Indian 
drew his knife and cut off a few inches of Mrs. Daviess' dress, so that she 
could not be interrupted in traveling. 

Mrs. Daviess was a woman of cool, deliberate courage, and accustomed 
to handle the gun so that she could shoot well, as many of the women were 
in the habit of doing in those days. She had contemplated, as a last resort, 



2 28 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

that if not rescued in the course of the day, when night came on and the 
Indians had fallen asleep, she would deliver herself and children by killing 
as many of the Indians as she could, thinking, in a night attack, as many of 
them that remained would most probably run off. Such an attempt would 
now seem a species of madness; but to those who were acquainted with 
Mrs. Daviess little doubt was entertained that, if the attempt had been 
made, it would have proven successful. 

The boy who had been scalped was greatly disfigured, as the hair never 
after grew upon that part of his head. He often wished for an opportunity 
to avenge himself upon the Indians for the injury he had received. Unfor- 
tunately for himself, ten years afterward the Indians came to the neighbor- 
hood of his father and stole a number of horses. Himself and a party of 
men went in pursuit of them, and, after following them for some days, the 
Indians, finding that they were likely to be overtaken, placed themselves ia 
ambush, and when their pursuers came up killed young Daviess and one 
other man ; so that he ultimately fell into their hands when about twenty-one 
years old. 

The next year after, the father died, his death being caused, as it was- 
supposed, by the extraordinary efforts he made to release his family from the 
Indians. An act of courage subsequently displayed by Mrs. Daviess is- 
calculated to exhibit her character in its true point of view. 

Kentucky, in its early days, like most new countries, was occasionally 
troubled by men of abandoned character, who lived by stealing the property 
of others, and, after committing their depredations, retired to their hiding- 
places, thereby eluding the operation of the law. One of these marauders^ 
a man of desperate character, who had committed extensive thefts -from Mr. 
Daviess, as well as from his neighbors, was pursued by Daviess and a party 
whose property he had taken, in order to bring him to justice. While the 
party were in pursuit, the suspected individual, not knowing any one was- 
pursuing him, came to the house of Daviess armed with a gun and toma- 
hawk, no person being at home but Mrs. Daviess and her children. After 
he had stepped in the house, Mrs. Daviess asked him if he would drink 
something, and, having set a bottle of whisky on the table, requested him 
to help himself. The fellow, not suspecting any danger, set his gun up by 
the door, and, while drinking, Mrs. Daviess picked up his rifle, and, placing 
herself in the door, had the gun cocked and leveled upon him by the time- 
he turned around, and in a peremptory manner ordered him to take a seat 
or she would shoot him. Struck with terror and alarm, he asked what he 
had done. She told him he had stolen her husband's property, and that she- 
intended to take care of him herself. In that condition she held him a 
prisoner until the party of men returned and took him into their pos- 
session. ^ Those were days in which even the women and children were 
taught to be fearless in self-protection. 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 471. 



Jj 



EPIC AGE OF KENTUCKY HISTORY. 229 

Sallust says: "The actions of the Athenians doubtless were great, yet 
1 believe they are somewhat less than fame would have us conceive them." 
Not so with the pioneers of Kentucky. But we may say of their exploits, 
as this author says of the actions of the Romans, " History has left a thou- 
sand of their more brilliant actions unrecorded, which would have done 
them great honor, but for want of eloquent hrstorians." Of those actions 
and events which are of record, we are obliged to omit from the pages of 
this history many of thrilling interest, the relation of which is better suited 
to other annals, and the recital of which here might not only enlarge the 
volume beyond proper dimensions, but surfeit the reader with too much of 
the repulsive horrors of strife and carnage. Enough is told of adventure, 
of romance, and of heroism, to make of the pioneer age of Kentucky an epic 
as inspiring and enchanting as any of ancient times, if only received through 
the illusive glamours of tradition, and recited to us in the enchanting verse 
of an Odyssey or an yEneid. 



23° 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

(1783-85.) 



End of the Revolutionary war. 

The news four months coming. 

Subsidence of Indian hostilities. 

Rage for lands. 

France and Spain intrigue to absorli 
Kentucky in the negotiations. 

Jealous of the expansion of the United 
States territory to the Mississippi. 

Congress and Dr. Franklin compromised 
by the arts of French diplomacy. 

Minister John Jay has the sagacity and 
firmness to resist and defeat these intrigues 
at Madrid and Paris. 

He wins over the English plenipoten- 
tiary. 

Speed's letter. 

New court established in Kentucky dis- 
trict. 

Court located at Danville. 

Emigration largely increased. 

Industry and thrift prevail. 

Broadhead's store, at Louisville, the first 
in Kentucky. 

Paine's disciples introduce communism. 

Reception of one at Lexington. 

Judge Harry Innes on the bench. 

Stations increased in Shelby county. 

Life and services of Bland Ballard, the 
noted scout and Indian fighter. 

Indians kill his father and several others 
of his family, whom he defends. 

Battle of the Boards. 

Colonel John Floyd killed. 

Destructiveness of life by Indian war- 
fare in Kentucky. 

Fight between the wild cat and school- 
master. 

Delay of treaty of peace until 1784. 

Criminations and retaliations between 
England and the States. 

England retains the North-west forts, to 
the great prejudice of Kentucky. 



Revenges and marauding on the front- 
iers provoke petty hostilities. 

Settlements north of Licking, in Mason 
county, resumed. 

Kenton visits his old home and father. 

Kenton's station at Washington, and 
Waller's at Maysville. 

Virginia cedes all her North-west terri- 
tory, nearly one hundred and seventy 
million acres, to the United States. 

No compensation for this vast treasure 
of domain. 

Subsequent cruelty and ingratitude of 
the Federal Government to Virginia. 

Blaine's censure of the wrong. 

Symptoms of hostilities by the Southern 
tribes. 

Meeting called by Colonel Logan to 
consider public affairs. 

It opens up the question of separation 
from Virginia. 

A convention of elected representatives 
called at Danville to consider. 

A second convention meets in May. 

A third, in August, 1785, finally acts. 

Nelson county created of part of Jeffer- 
son. 

Address of the convention to the people. 

Memorial to the Virginia Legislature. 

No newspaper or printing-press. 

Copies of the address posted in manu- 
script. 

General James Wilkinson prominent. 

Colonel Robert Johnson at Great Cross- 
ings. 

Incident in the removal of Rev. Eastin. 
to Bourbon county. 

Generosity of an Indian. 

Attack on the parents and comrades of 
Judge Rowan, then but ten years old. 

Desperate adventure of three men in 
pursuit of Indian raiders to Tennessee. 



a 



PEACE REIGNS SUPREME. 



231 



Captain James Ward's boat attacked. 

Elliott killed at Carrollton. 

McClure's camp assailed. 

Capture and rescue of Mrs. McClure 
and one child. 

Moore's parly attacked and nine of them 
killed. 



Captain Whitley's pursuit. 

Colonel Thomas Marshall warned by 
Simon Girty's brother. 

Simon Girty's cruel malice to tlie whites. 

The wrongs done him that made him a 
renegade. 

Their costly consequences to the whites. 



The white-winged angel of peace hovered near, and gave a silvery lining 
to the somber clouds of war that had overshadowed the whole land for long 
years, as the closing days of the old passed away, and the birth throes of a 
better era ushered in the new year of 1783. The preliminary articles of 
peace between the United States and Great Britain were signed on the 30th 

t of November, 1782; but the welcome intelligence was not received in Ken- 
tucky until nearly four months later, in the spring of next year. ^ No more 

r striking commentary could be written, expressive of the marvelous contrast 
between the slow processes by which knowledge was transmitted and dif- 
fused throughout the habitable world a century ago, and the electric and 
phonetic agencies by which a flashing spark or a fleeting sound is made now 
to blend in the unit of thought, the annihilation of time and distance. The 
achievement of American independence and the liberation of man to the 
free exercise of volition, of thought, and of action — the divinely-given 
heritage and right of manhood — were but the dawning of that modern new 
age of intellectual activity, invention, and enterprise which has revolution- 
ized the life of civilization, and so suddenly made possible the miracles of 
human conception and mechanism which have been born into the world 
almost with the mystery of revelation. 

The winter passed away in comparative quiet and immunity from Indian 
disturbances. The expedition of Clark in the autumn had paralyzed the 
power of the Miami tribes by destroying their property, which it would take 
the entire year to restore, even though they might have had the disposition 
for further hostilities. These savages were well apprised of the prospective 
treaty of peace, for which they knew negotiations to be pending. The effect 
was to hold them in suspense, for it was impossible to determine the conse- 
quences to themselves until the full terms were known. The tomahawk 
remained in the belt and the scalping-knife in the sheath, for the time. No 
event could be more opportune for the views and occupations of the people of 
Kentucky, than the confirmation of the gospel of great joy which the news of 
peace brought to their hearts and homes. They were wearied of war, and 
longed for that peace which would return them to their homes and families 
in security, and permit them to build their fortunes amid the abundance 
which unsparing nature had lavished upon this favorite land. The land- 
hunger, hitherto a strong and prevalent passion, but somewhat restrained by 
the demands and diversions of militarv defense, was now destined to become 



I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 155. 



232 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

a consuming appetite with the great masses who were seeking homes or 
speculation in the famed westward Eden. What unforeseen and unhappy 
incidents intervened to cause a renewal of hostilities by the Indians, and to 
partially disappoint the hopes of the pioneers, when chronicled in due time, 
will become philosophy teaching by example, and furnish lessons of wisdom 
to the statesmanship of the future that seeks to profit by the experience of 
history. 

It is not the province of this history to dilate upon those matters which 
affect the policy and diplomacy of the nation and of Europe, further than 
as these may be an essential part of Kentucky history also. We have before 
alluded to the fact that the destiny and disposal of the territory of Kentucky, 
in the ultimate adjudication of boundaries and jurisdictions in the now pend- 
ing treaty negotiations between England, France, Spain, and the United 
States, formed the pivotal point on which would turn the questions as to 
whether the AUeghanies should limit the western boundaries of the United 
States, should Spain and France found colonial empires of all territories 
south of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi rivers. The fate of the conti- 
nent lay in the balance. 

Spain held an indefinite extent of territory on either side of the Missis- 
sippi river, and was covetous for more. France had ceded much to England, 
but possessed islands in the seas interested in the commerce and navigation 
of the river. Both nations were connected by nature and by compact, and, 
although both had aided the United States in the war of independence, each 
saw with jealous eye the territorial claim of the latter extended by chartered 
grant and by conquest to the banks of the Mississippi. The assistance these 
two kingly powers rendered was known to be prompted more by hatred of 
England, than by love for the Americans. It was not disinterested; and the 
day for the consideration of indemnity was one of postponement, not of 
doubt. This is but a part of the international code, more commercial than 
humanitarian. It was a wise stroke of policy for them to dismember from 
England so powerful an arm of power as her growing American colonies 
promised to be; but it was not their design, or their desire, that these sep- 
arated colonies should confederate into a grand unit of government, that 
would absorb and overpower their own vast possessions on the Western Con- 
tinent. The delimitation of boundaries must be controlled by the finesse of 
diplomacy, and under the dictations and arts of Paris and Madrid. 

France assumed the lead, as most active and enterprising in the cabinet 
and in the field. Besides, her rivalry in commerce and manufactures made 
it an object to control the markets of the new world, as far as practicable. 
The first step was taken by Count Lucerne, French ambassador at Philadel- 
phia, in conformity with instructions from Vergennes, French minister of 
state. These adroit diplomats had before, with only too much success, 
urged upon Congress to instruct the American minister at Paris: ^ First — 

I Pitkin, Vol. II., p. 92. 



ij 



MINISTER JOHN JAY'S FIRMNESS. 233 

if That the United States extend westward no farther than settlements were 
r permitted by the English proclamation of 1763; Second — That they con- 
in sider that they have no right to navigate the Mississippi, no territory belonging 
, to them being situated thereon; Third^That the settlements east of the 
'. Mississippi, embracing Kentucky and all territory south of it, which fall 
' under the last prohibition, are possessions of the crown of Great Britain, and 
I proper objects against which the arms of Spain may be employed for con- 
'■: quests for the Spanish crown. Before this time also, on motion of the 
i, delegates from Virginia, and assented to by the delegates from other States, 
t ■except North Carolina, Congress had instructed Minister John Jay, at 
Madrid, " no longer to insist on the free navigation of the Mississippi below 
the southern boundary of the United States." ^ 

Already had the flatteries of Vergennes, and the blandishments of Paris- 
ian society, won over to the advocacy of this humiliating concession. Dr. 
: Franklin, the American representative at the French court. ^ Count Lu- 
I cerne had persuaded Congress, in a time of despondency or of credulous 
■ confidence, to instruct its commissioners at Paris "to undertake nothing in 
the negotiations for peace or truce, without the knowledge and concurrence 
i of the king of France, and ultimately to govern yourselves by his advice 
: and opinion." ^ 

This mistaken concession, fortunately for Kentucky, and for the inde- 
i pendence and honor of the States, was not acquiesced in by all of the 
American plenipotentiaries whose duty it was to negotiate for an honorable 
1 peace with Great Britain. French intrigues had formed this controlling 
' party in our Congress, and Dr. Franklin, of the three commissioners, had 
i been won over at Paris. Thus were the instruments prepared and the ma- 
I chinery put in motion, which were to stifle the new-born independence of 
the United States in the cradle of French intrigue and flattery, and to limit 
the boundaries of their territory at the will and pleasure of the French mon- 
arch.-* At the critical moment, Commissioner John Jay had the sagacity, 
the firmness, and the personal independence to ignore the instructions of 
Congress, and to resist the plot of French intrigue, as he had that of the 
1 court of Spain. The elder Adams coincided in the views of Jay, and finally 
Franklin acquiesced. Jay unfolded to the British minister the designs of 
France and Spain, and convinced him that the limitation of the boundaries 
: and jurisdiction of the United States, insisted on by them, was intended to 
enhance the power of these great rivals, and to give them ultimate suprem- 
acy on the western continent. This view induced the English commissioners 
much more readily, to concede the entire territorial claim of Great Britain 
south of the lakes, and to the Mississippi river, an unconditional independ- 
ence. But for these opposing incidents to subtle intrigue, Kentucky might 
have been a French or a Spanish province. On such slight circumstances 

1 Jay's Life, Vol. I , p. i2o. 3 Pitkin, Vol. II., p. 109. 

2 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 156. 4 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 157. 



234 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

often hangs the fate of nations. In the processes of time, French and Span- 
ish rule would have doubtless been extirpated by Anglo-American aggression ; 
but the present Federal unit might have been prevented. 

^ To show the uneasy and dangerous sentiment pervading the people 
at this time, we quote from a letter of James Speed, of Lincoln county, to 
Governor Harrison, of Virginia, of July 22, 1784: 

"Many of the inhabitants of this place are not natives of Virginia, nor 
well affected to this government. These are sowing sedition among the 
people as fast as they can, which I fear will have too great an effect so long 
as we are so pent up in forts and stations, notwithstanding the attorney-gen- 
eral (Daniel) has taken every step in his power to suppress them. 

"I fear the faction will increase, and ere long we shall revolt from gov- 
ernment, in order to try if we can govern ourselves, which, in my opinion, 
will be from bad to worse. I hope your Excellency will endeavor to im- 
prove the present good disposition of the savages toward us, and have a 
peace concluded as soon as possible." 

In March, the Legislature of Virginia directed an improvement of the 
judiciary in this distant section, uniting the three counties into one district, 
with a court of common law and chancery jurisdiction co-extensive with 
its limits, and possessed of criminal jurisdiction. 2 John Floyd and Samuel 
McDowell were the first judges. These appointed John May clerk. Walker 
Daniel was commissioned, by the governor of Virginia, attorney-general for 
the district of Kentucky. The former division into the three counties of 
Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln, had sunk the name of Kentucky. The cre- 
ation of the judicial district revived it, never more to go out. 

The court was to meet at Harrodstown; but there was no suitable house 
in which to hold its sessions, and it adjourned to a meeting-house near Dutch 
station, six miles distant. The attorney-general and clerk were directed to 
select some safe place near Crow's station, on or near the site of Danville, 
to hold the court; to have constructed a log-house large enough to accom- 
modate the court in one end, and two juries in the other; and to contract 
for building a jail of heaved logs at least nine inches thick. These structures 
so characteristic of the homely economy and simplicity of the times, as well 
as the poverty of mechanic arts, gave origin to the attractive town of Dan- 
ville, so noted for the beauty and fertility of the country around it, and for 
the hospitable virtues and elegant culture of its people. On condition that 
such buildings were erected at a convenient place, without expense to the 
court or State, the judges pledged that they would remove to and occupy 
the same; and in case they should abandon the use of such buildings at any 
time, they promised to reimburse the outlay for the same, from the funds 
allowed for the support of the court, or induce the Legislature to do so. 
Here the court continued to hold its sessions until the separation from Vir- 
ginia, when it was abolished. 

I Virginia Calendar, Vol. HI. 3 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 159. 



FIRST STORE IN KENTUCKY. 235 

The obstacles to emigration were this year mainly removed, and the 
inducements increased. Many soldiers of the Revolution, when discharged, 
having but few ties or attachments for localities, turned their eyes toward 
the country beyond the mountains, where the lands were fertile and cheap, 
and where there seemed the fairest prospects of building up from the ruins 
of wasted years and wasted fortunes. Society soon began to assume the 
conventional forms and customs of older communities ; while the generous 
soil, with liberty and peace, soon spread cheerful content and even pros- 
perity over the country. The fields smiled with abundant crops, the cattle 
and hogs multiplied and grew fat upon the nutritious pastures and the rich 
nuts of the forest; while the industrious housewives plied the hand-cards, 
the spinning-wheel, and loom. Emigrants and traders brought in some 
money, which, with supplies from other sources, fully met the simple wants 
of a people who had nearly all they cared for that money could buy. Me- 
chanics, divines, and school-masters came in to fill up the picture. The crops 
and industries began to be more varied. Wheat and rye were added to the 
grain supplies, while mills and distilleries were erected to consume the sur- 
plus products. 

1 Daniel Broadhead, an enterprising business man of Louisville, this 
year made purchases of merchandise at Philadelphia, which was transported 
across the mountains, in wagons, to Pittsburgh, and thence in boats to Louis- 
ville; thus establishing the first store in Kentucky for the sale of foreign 
goods. For the first time, the belles adorned their persons in calico, and 
the beaux with wool hats. 

There were no serious invasions or raids by the Indians, and new settle- 
ments sprang up, not now as the compulsory result of military enterprise, 
but rather of civil employment to lay the foundations of happy homes. 
Such were the consequences of suspended hostilities and anticipated peace. 
How striking and how desirable, in contrast to a state of war! Yet, in the 
present state of partially-refined sentiment, defensive wars are held to be 
just, and to be met with patriotic valor; while wars of aggression merit the 
execration of mankind as unjust, cruel, and destructive to the victims, and 
debasing and brutalizing to the authors. 

2 A singular instance illustrative of the times, and worthy of mention, 
occurred this year. Thomas Paine, the notorious blasphemer of God and 
defamer of men, wrote a book to ridicule and to expose to contempt the 
chartered right of Virginia to the country west of the AUeghanies, by 
twisting the terms "west and north-west," found in the charter, like a cork- 
screw, around the North pole, to use his own language, and to persuade 
Congress to assume the possession and sovereignty of the same. Possessed 
of marked brilliancy as a writer, but of a morbidly cynical and morose 
spirit, Paine excelled in this species of authorship. Though an atheistic 
monstrosity, he found admirers and disciples among a class of men who had 

1 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 161. 2 Marshall, Vol, 1., p. 162. 




236 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

as little regard for divine or human authority as himself. Of this lawless 
class, two men of Pennsylvania, having imbibed the doctrine and spirit of 
this book, came to Kentucky to propagate their communism, and to ap- 
propriate their neighbors' property. Pomeroy went to Louisville, where he 
"became obscured from view. Galloway chose Lexington as his field, and 
in due time obtained an audience and made some disciples. Several of 
these he persuaded to enter on the adjacent lands of neighbors, to claim an 
equal right to possession and use, and to begin improvements, expecting 
to hold under an act of Congress soon to be promulgated. The people 
had been before annoyed with mischievous attempts to unsettle their land 
tides. 

The procedure was assuming a rather serious phase, and some pro- 
tective measures were deemed essential. A justice of the peace was applied 
to for a warrant. There was some doubt as to any law for a case so novel. 
But finally, an old Virginia law was found, which imposed a fine iti tobacco^ 
at the discretion of the court, upon "the propagators of false news, to the 
disturbance of the good people of the colony." This was enough. The 
warrant was issued, and Galloway was brought up for examination, and the 
facts easily proved on him. He had said that the Virginia title "was no 
better than an oak leaf," which had disturbed the minds and peace of many. 
He was sent up for regular trial, and the affair had now gained enough noto- 
riety to bring in quite a crowded audience. The fellow could make little 
defense, as his obnoxious teachings had led to several cases of trespass and 
depredation. He was adjudged a culprit, and fined one thousand pounds 
of tobacco, which, being unable to pay, he must lie in prison. His distress 
was very great, and finally it was intimated to him that, if he would leave 
the country, he might be released and given the opportunity. He most 
readily agreed to this, and was allowed to disappear without further inquiry. 

The other disciple, who made his appearance at Louisville, fared yet 
worse than Galloway, at Lexington. In the court records for May 7, 1784, 
the following entry appears : 

"George Pomeroy being brought before the court, charged with having 
been guilty of a breach of the act of amnesty, entitled ' Divulgers of false 
news,' on examining sundry witnesses, and the said Pomeroy being heard 
on his defense, the court is of the opinion that the said George Pome- 
roy is guilty of a breach of the said law; and it is, therefore, ordered that 
he be fined two thousand pounds of tobacco for the same. And it is further 
ordered that the said Pomeroy give good security for his good behavior, 
himself in one thousand pounds sterling, with two securities at five hundred 
pounds sterling, and pay costs, etc." 

He was vigorously prosecuted by Walker Daniel, the Commonwealth's 
attorney, in person. 

From this time on, no one had the temerity to question the right of 
Virginia to sell her lands, and make good and valid title thereto. The 




SKETCH OF ELAND BALLARD. 



237 




office of deputy register, which had been authorized, was now filled, for 
the reception of plats and certificates of surveys, in- 
stead of sending them to the Virginia capital. 

This year Judge Harry Innes was elected 
by the Legislature of Virginia one of the 
judges of the Supreme Court of the Dis- 
trict of Kentucky, and on the 3d of No- 
vember he entered on the duties of his 
office at the newly-built court-house, at 
Danville, in conjunction with Caleb Wal- 
lace and Samuel McDowell. 

Squire Boone was now a member of 
the Virginia Legislature, and rather than 
leave his family in the exposed situatio-n 
at his station, two miles north of Shelby- 
ville, it was transferred to Colonel Lynch, wajor bland ballard. 

and afterward known as Lynch's station. Captain Tyler and Bland Bal- 
lard, Sr. , built a station on Ti^k creek, four miles east of Shelby ville, known 
afterward as Tyler's station. \ Owen's station was built near Shelbyville, by 
Bracket Owen, father of the gallant Colonel Abraham Owen, who fell in the 
battle of Tippecanoe.) Whitaker's and Wells' stations were constructed about 
this time also, the former at the site of the farm of A. P. Carothers, and the 
latter nearly four miles north-west of Shelbyville, on the Shackelford place. 

These settlements became important nuclei, about which gathered an 
enterprising and daring population. Among the foresters and Indian-fight- 
ers who became pre-eminent with Boone, Kenton, and others, was Bland 
Ballard, Jr., the son of the elder Ballard, who had recently settled at Tyler's 
station. He was born at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1761, and died in 
Shelby county, in 1853, ninety-two years of age. The history of Kentucky 
is incomplete without a sketch of his life and character, as given in the 
biographical reminiscences of the day. 

From Collins' sketch we learn that :^ " He came to Kentucky in 1779, 
when eighteen years old ; joined the militia ; served in Colonel Bowman's 
expedition. May, 1779; in General Clark's expedition against the Piqua 
towns, July, 1780, where he was dangerously wounded in the hip, and 
suffered from it until his death ; in General Clark's expedition, November, 
1782, against the same towns; in 1786, was a spy for General Clark, in 
the Wabash expedition, rendered abortive by mutiny of the soldiers ; in 
1791, was a guide under Generals Scott and Wilkinson ; and August 20, 
1794, was with General Wayne at the battle of the ' Fallen Timbers.' 

"When not engaged in regular campaign, he served as hunter and spy 
for General Clark, who was stationed at Louisville, and in this service he 
continued for two years and a half. During this time he had several ren- 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 710. 




238 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

counters ^vith the Indians. One of these occurred just below Louisville. 
He had been sent in his character of spy to explore the Ohio from the 
mouth of Salt river to the Falls, and from thence up to what is now the 
town of Westport. On his way down the river, when six or eight miles 
below the Falls, he heard, early one morning, a noise on the Indiana shore. 
He immediately concealed himself in the bushes, and when the fog had 
scattered sufficiently to permit him to see, he discovered a canoe filled with 
three Indians, approaching the Kentucky shore. When they had ap- 
proached within range, he fired and killed one. The others jumped over- 
board, and endeavored to get their canoe into deep water, but before they 
succeeded, he killed a second, and finally the third. Upon reporting his 
morning's work to General Clark, a detachment was sent down, who found 
the three dead Indians and buried them. For this service General Clark 
gave him a linen shirt, and some other small presents. This shirt, however, 
was the only one he had for several years, except those made of leather ; 
of this shirt the pioneer hero was, doubtless, justly proud. 

"While on a scout to the Saline Licks, on one occasion, Ballard, with 
one companion, came suddenly upon a large body of Indians, just as they 
were in the act of encamping. They immediately charged, firing their 
guns and raising the yell. This induced the Indians, as they had antici- 
pated, to disperse for the moment, until the strength of the assailing party 
could be ascertained. During this period of alarm, Ballard and his com- 
panion mounted two of the best horses they could find, and retreated for 
two days and nights, until they reached the Ohio, which they crossed upon 
a raft, making their horses swim. As they ascended the Kentucky bank, 
the Indians reached the opposite shore. 

" At the time of the defeat on Long Run, he was living at Linn's station 
on Beargrass, and came up to assist some families in moving from Squire 
Boone's station, near the present town of Shelbyville. The people of this 
station had become alarmed on account of the numerous Indian signs in 
the country, and had determined to move to the stronger stations on the 
Beargrass. They proceeded safely until they arrived near Long Run, when 
they were attacked front and rear by the Indians, who fired their rifles and 
then rushed on them with their tomahawks. Some few of the men ran at 
the first fire ; of the others, some succeeded in saving part of their families, 
or died with them after a brave resistance. The subject of this sketch, 
after assisting several of the women on horseback who had been thrown at 
the first onset, during which he had one or two single-handed combats with 
the Indians, and seeing the party about to be defeated, succeeded in 
getting outside of the Indian line, when he used his rifle with some effect, 
until he saw they were totally defeated. He then started for the station, 
pursued by the Indians, and on stO])ping at Floyd's Fork, in the bushes, on 
the bank, he saw an Indian on horseback pursuing the fugitives ride into 
the creek, and as he ascended the bank near to where Ballard stood, he 



BALLARD S EXPLOITS. 239 

shot the Indian, caught the horse and made good his escape to the station. 
Many were killed, the number not recollected, some taken prisoners, and 
some escaped to the station. They afterwards learned from the prisoners 
taken on this occasion, that the Indians who attacked them were marching 
to attack Squire Boone's station, but learning from their spies that they 
were moving, the Indians turned from the head of BuUskin and marched 
in the direction of Long Run. The news of this defeat induced Colonel 
Floyd to raise a party of thirty-seven men, with the intention of chastising 
the Indians. Floyd commanded one division and Captain Holden the 
other, Ballard being with the latter. They proceeded with great caution, 
but did not discover the Indians until they received their fire, which killed 
or mortally wounded sixteen of their men. Notwithstanding the loss, the 
party under Floyd maintained their ground, and fought bravely until over- 
powered by three times their number, who appealed to the tomahawk. 
The retreat, however, was completed without much further loss. This 
occasion has been rendered memorable by the magnanimous gallantry of 
young Wells, afterward the Colonel Wells of Tippecanoe, who saved the 
life of Floyd. 

"In 1788, the Indians attacked the little fort on Tick creek, a few 
miles east of Shelbyville, where his father resided. It happened that his 
father had removed a short distance out of the fort, for the purpose of 
being convenient to the sugar-camp. The first intimation they had of the 
Indians was early in the morning, when his brother Benjamin went out to 
get wood to make a fire. They shot him and then assailed the house. The 
inmates barred the door and prepared for defense. His father was the 
only man in the house, and no man in the fort, except the subject of this 
sketch and one old man. As soon as he heard the guns he repaired to 
Avithin shooting distance of his father's house, but dared not venture nearer. 
Here he commenced using his rifle with good effect. In the meantime, the 
Indians broke open the house and killed his father, not before, however, he 
had killed one or two of their number. The Indians, also, killed one full 
sister, one half-sister, his step-mother, and tomahawked the youngest sister, 

Ij a child, who recovered. When the Indians broke into the house, his step- 
mother endeavored to effect her escape by the back door, but an Indian 
pursued her and as he raised his tomahawk to strike her, the subject of this 
sketch fired at the Indian, not, however, in time to prevent the fatal blow, 

^ and they both fell and expired together. The Indians were supposed to 
number about fifteen, and before they completed their work of death, they 

I sustained a loss of six or seven. 

^ "During the period he was spy for General Clark, he was taken prisoner 
by five Indians on the other side of the Ohio, a few miles above Louisville, 

1 and conducted to an encampment twenty-five miles from the river. The 

ll^ Indians treated him comparatively well, for though they kept him with 

, a guard they did not tie him. On the next day after his arrival at the 



240 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

encampment, the Indians were engaged in horse -racing. In the evening, 
two very old warriors were to have a race, which attracted the attention of 
all the Indians, and his guard left him a few steps to see how the race would 
terminate. Near him stood a fine black horse, which the Indians had stolen 
recently from Beargrass, and, while the attention of the Indians was at- 
tracted in a different direction, Ballard mounted this horse and had a race 
indeed. They pursued him nearly to the river, but he escaped, though the 
horse died soon after he reached the station. This was the only instance, 
with the exception of that at the river Raisin, that he was a prisoner. 

"In after life, Major Ballard repeatedly represented the people of Shelby 
county in the Legislature, and commanded a company in Colonel Allen's 
regiment, under General Harrison, in the campaign of 18 12-13. He led 
the advance of the detachment, which fought the first battle of the river 
Raisin — was wounded slightly on that day, and severely by a spent ball on 
the 2 2d of January. This wound also continued to annoy his old age. On 
this disastrous occasion he was taken prisoner, and suffered severely by the 
march through snow and ice from Maiden to Fort George. 

"As an evidence of the difficulties which surrounded the early pioneer 
in this country, it may be proper to notice an occasion in which Major 
Ballard was disturbed by the Indians at the spot where he then resided. 
They stole his only horse at night. He heard them when they took the 
horse from the door to which he was tied. His energy and sagacity was 
such that he got in advance of the Indians before they reached the Ohio, 
waylaid them, three in number, shot the one riding his horse, and suc- 
ceeded not only in escaping, but in catching the horse and riding back in 
safety. 

"A ludicrous incident of the year happened: Three men left Harrod's 
station to search for horses which had strayed off. They pursued the trail 
through the rich peavine and cane for some miles. Frequently they saw 
signs of Indians in their vicinity; hence, moved with cautious steps. They 
continued the search until darkness and a cold rain drove them to take 
shelter in an old deserted log-cabin, thickly surrounded by cane and matted 
over with grapevines. They determined not to strike a fire, as the Indians 
knew the location of the cabin, and, like themselves, might seek its friendly 
shelter and dispute their right to possession. They concluded to ascend into 
the loft of the cabin, the floor of which was clap-boards, resting upon round 
poles. In their novel possession, they lay down quietly, side by side, each 
man holding his trusty rifle in his arms. They had not been in this perilous 
position long when aix well-armed Indians entered the cabin, placed their 
guns and other implements of war and hunting in a corner, struck a light, 
and began to make the usual demonstrations of joy on such occasions. One 
of our heroes, determining to know the number of the Indians — he was the 
middle man of the three, and lying on his back — as hilarity and mirth grew 
noisier, attempted to turn over and get a peep at things below. His com- 



DEATH OF COLONEL FLOYD. 24I 

. rades held him to keep hhii from turning over. In the struggle, ®ne of the 

poles broke, and, with a tremendous crash, the clap-boards and the men fell 

i into the midst of the affrighted Indians, who, with a yell of terror, fled from 

I the house, leaving their guns, and never returned. The scarcely less terrified 

- u bites remained in quiet possession of the cabin, and in the morning re- 

- turned to the station with their trophies. Whenever the three heroes met in 
: after life, they laughed immoderately over their strange deliverance, and 
. what they called the 'battle of the boards.' " 

1 Willis Green wrote to Governor Harrison, August 21, 1784: "About 
" ten days ago Walker Daniel, Esq., attorney-general, was unfortunately mur- 
i dered by the Indians as he was passing from Louisville to the salt works," 
J and then enlarges upon the great loss to the country by the sad event, and 

urges the appointment of a successor as soon as possible. 
a A most untimely and lamented death of a veteran pioneer cast a shadow 
[J of grief over many hearts. On the 12th of April, Colonel John Floyd and 
: his brother Charles, unsuspicious of danger from Indians, were riding to- 
gether some miles from Floyd's station, when they were fired upon by a 
" straggling band, and the former mortally wounded. He was dressed in his 
f wedding-coat of scarlet, and made a conspicuous mark. His brother, abaii- 
L doning his own horse, which was badly wounded, sprang up behind the 
; saddle, and, putting his arms around the wounded colonel, took the reins 
fc and bore him off to his home, where he died in a few hours. Colonel Floyd 
*>^ had a favorite horse, which he usually rode, and which had the remarkable 
ji- instinct of scenting or discovering the proximity of Indians, and always gave 
! to his rider the sign of their presence. He remarked to his brother, 
"Charles, if I had been riding Pompey to-day, this would not have hap- 

- pened." The loss of no citizen could have been more sorely felt. ^ 

History has chronicled but comparatively itw of the fatal and destructive 

> casualties which make up the long death-roll of the martyrs to savage 

^ cruelty and atrocity in Kentucky from 1775 to the close of 1782. It would 

'-. but burden its pages with harrowing recitals, if all such incidents had been 

recorded for the pen of description. We recount the few to illustrate the 

'. character and life of an epoch of thrilling interest, and bury the great ma- 

l jority in that oblivion which obscures to memory even the names and heroic 

? deeds and sufferings of these comrades who have passed to their reward. As 

a vivid picture of the destructive mortality in the frequent and deadly life- 

for-life encounters with the relentless savage foe. Captain Nathaniel Hart, of 

Woodford county, wrote, as late as 1840: "I went with my mother in 

January, 1783, to Logan's station, to prove my father's will. He was slain 

1 in July previous. Twenty armed men were of the party. Twenty-three 

|j; widmvs were in attendance upon the court to obtain letters of administration 

on the estates of their husbands, who had been killed during the past year." 

This makes no mention of the larger number killed who had no widows or 

I Virginia Calendar. 2 Collins, Vol. 11, p. 239. 

16 



k 



242 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

no estates to be administered on. In 178 1 alone, over one hundred men, 
women, and children were slain within half a day's ride of Louisville. 

The following account of a fight between a wild-cat and a school-master 
pictures the dangers from other than Indians: i"In 1783, Lexington was 
only a cluster of cabins, one of which, near the spot where the court-house 
now stands, was used as a school-house. One morning in May, McKinney, 
the teacher, was sitting alone at his desk, busily engaged in writing, when, 
hearing a slight noise at the door, he turned his head, and beheld an enor- 
mous cat, with her fore-foot upon the step of the door, her tail curled over 
her back, her bristles erect, and her eyes glancing rapidly through tht 
room, as if in search of prey. 

" McKinney's position at first completely concealed him, but a slight and 
involuntary motion of his chair, at the sight of this shaggy inhabitant of tht 
forest, attracted puss' attention, and their eyes met. Seeing his danger, 
McKinney hastily arose and attempted to snatch a cylindrical rule from a 
table which stood within reach, but the cat was too quick for him. 

" Darting upon him with the proverbial activity of her tribe, she fastened 
upon his side with her teeth, and began to rend and tear with her claws like 
fury. McKinney's clothes were in an instant torn from his side, and his 
flesh dreadfully mangled by the enraged animal, whose strength and ferocity 
filled him with astonishment. He in vain attempted to disengage her from 
his side. Her long, sharp teeth were fastened between his ribs, and hi;^ 
efforts served but to enrage her the more. Seeing his blood flow very copi- 
ously from the numerous wounds in his side, he became seriously alarmed, 
and, not knowing what else to do, he threw himself upon the edge of the 
table, and pressed her against the sharp corner with the whole weight of his 
body. 

"The cat now began to utter the most angry and discordant cries, and 
McKinney at the same time lifting up his voice in concert, the two together 
sent forth notes so doleful as to alarm the whole town. Women, who are 
always the first in hearing or spreading news, were now the first to come to 
McKinney's assistance. The boldest of them rushed in, and, seeing McKin- 
ney bending over the corner of the table and writhing his body as if in 
great pain, she at first supposed that he was laboring under a severe fit of 
the colic ; but quickly perceiving the cat, which was now in the agonies 
of death, she screamed out, ' Why, good heaven ! Mr. McKinney, what is 
the matter?' 

" 'I have caught a cat, madam,' replied he, gravely turning around, 
the sweat streaming from his face, under the mingled operation of fright and 
fatigue and agony. Most of the neighbors had now arrived, and attempted 
to disengage the dead cat from her antagonist, but so firmly were her tusks 
locked between his ribs that this was a work of no small difficulty. Scarcely 
had it been effected when McKinney became very sick, and was compelled 

I McClung, p. 169. 



IN A STATE OF SUSPENSE. 



243 



i to go to bed. In a few days, however, he had entirely recovered, and so 
late as 1820 was alive and a resident of Bourbon county, Kentucky, where 

■ he has often been heard to affirm that he, at any time, had rather fight two 
Indians than one wild-cat." 

Though the preliminary articles for peace were signed in November, 

'■ 1782, the definitive treaty was not signed until September, 1783. These 

final stipulations were not ratified by the governments until May, 1784, thus 

" holding in suspense the anxious public for eighteen months. The British 

■ forts south of the lakes were to be surrendered to the authority of the 
United States by the terms of the treaty, which was a consummation earn- 
estly wished for, as a means of restraint against further Indian hostilities 

) from that quarter. 1 Unhappily, mutual complaints of infractions of the 
' treaty stipulations postponed the execution of this provision. There was 
' much irritable crimination on both sides. 

; The Legislature of Virginia suspended the collection of debts within her 

jurisdiction by British subjects, while the English stubbornly refused to give 

> up the forts. The Indians, seeing these frontier fortifications, the evidences 

of power reserved, in the hands of their old allies, concluded that they could 

', rely on their protection against the Americans. 

This was but too readily given by the agents and subjects of Britain, 

r especially by those interested in a monopoly of the fur trade. It is but the 

i part of candor to admit that the Kentuckians gave cause of provocation to 

i the red men. There were many citizens who cherished the bitterest re- 

ll venges for horrible wrongs done them, as may be found among frontiersmen 

. always who have been subjected to savage warfare. Then there were law- 

j less and desperate characters among the whites, the refuse of disbanded 

armies, who were ever ready for deeds of violence and spoliation against 

the Indians, for which they well knew no punishment would be inflicted in 

: the prejudiced state of public sentiment. These irritating and inciting 

1 causes were only too sure to find a vent in renewed acts of mutual outrage 

: and bloodshed. Amicable relations gradually ceased, confidence was lost, 

1 friendly intercourse abated, and retaliation became the common appeal. 

J The renewal of hostilities was soon lighted up along the borders, and the 

tragedies of old were in store for the future. 

Until this year, 1784, that portion of Kentucky north of Licking, which 

attracted much attention from the earliest visitors, and of which Mason 

county was the central part, had been mainly abandoned, on account of the 

dangers from its contiguity to the tribes on the Scioto and Miami rivers. 

I This was the section which first enraptured Simon Kenton and a number 

^ of comrades. The scarred veteran, yet in the flush and prime of stalwart 

I youth, availed of the first opportunity of relaxation and safety, after nine 

years of forced abandonment, to return and repossess himself of his old 

. ttnprovetnents at Washington, at the head of Lawrence creek, made in 

I Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 168-188. 



244 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 






1775.^ He commanded a company of scouts, and piloted Clark's army in 

1782, in the expedition against Chillicothe; and on the disbandment of the 
troops at the mouth of Licking, he returned to Harrodstown and gave 
attention to the settlements of some lands on Salt river until the fall of 

1783. He determined to visit again his aged father and kindred, and, 
after thirteen years' absence, to behold once more the scenes and com- 
panions of his boyhood days. The meetings were joyful, for they had long 
mourned him as dead. All seemed like a bewildering dream to him, as he 
contrasted the orderly quiet of the peaceful community with his boisterous 
and eventful manhood, storm-beaten through the fierce foray of battle, the 
grim gauntlet, the remorseless stake, and the wild war-whoop, so familiar to 
his mind. He was kindly received by Veach and his wife, his old rival and 
sweetheart, and both the old feud and the old flame were forgotten in the 
friendly greetings. 

Kenton gathered up his venerable father and family, whom he had per- 
suaded to return with him to find a new home in his Kentucky paradise, 
and started westward. At Redstone fort, his father sickened and died, and 
on the winding banks of the Monongahela he laid to rest his venerated 
remains, where no marble or inscription now marks the repose of the dust 
of the ancestor of the grea,t pioneer. 

In the midst of dangers from Indian incursions, he built some block- 
houses late in the fall of 1784, at the old Washington site, which became the 
nucleus for quite a settlement of families in that vicinity by the spring of 
1785. In 1786, he sold to Fox & Wood, for a mere nominal sum, one 
thousand acres, on which they laid out the town of Washington. Old Ned 
Waller had settled on the site of Maysville the year previous, and these 
became the rival towns of importance in that part of Kentucky, Maysville 
being known for years after as Limestone. 

2 As early as 1781, Virginia, actuated by that sentiment of magnanimity 
and patriotism that ever distinguished her, had offered to the acceptance of 
Congress, for the common good of the confederated Union, all the north- 
west territory comprehended within her royal charter. This she had 
gallantly won by the prowess of her sons, under the lead of the heroic 
Clark, from the Ohio to the Canada line, and westward to the Mississippi. 
She secured all the rights of certain individuals acquired, the payment of the 
expenses of conquest, and the erection of new republican States. The 
terms were this year acceded to, and a formal deed of transfer was made 
and executed by her representation in 1784. As Marshall eloquently 
says: "Thus, while emperors, kings, and potentates of the earth fight, de- 
vastate, and conquer for territory and dominion, the great State of Virginia 
peacefully and unconstrained made a gratuitous donation to the common 
stock of the Union of a country over which she had proposed to erect ten 
new States, as future members of the confederation. And to her honor be 

X Collins, Vol. LI., p. 450. 2 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 160. 



THE DIVISION OF VIRGINIA. 245 

it remembered, that the favorable change which took place in the state of 
. public affairs, from a doubtful contest to acknowledged independence, 
. tainted not the purity of her motive, shook not the firmness of her pur- 
] pose, nor varied the object of her policy. She conceded the right of 
dominion, while Kentucky remained her most remote frontier, and the 
Ohio, instead of the Mississippi, her north-western boundary. But she 
1 had magnified herself and secured her peace in the Union, on which she re- 
. lied, as on her own arm, for its protection and durability." 

The territory thus ceded by Virginia embraced the area of the following 
.__ States : 

SQUARE MILES. 

*^ Ohio 39,964 

' Indiana 33,809 

- Illinois 55,414 

Michigan 56,451 

1- Wisconsin 53,924 

Minnesota, east of the Mississippi 26,000 



Total 265,562 



J Or 169,959,680 acres, from sales of which the United States has received 
•over one hundred million dollars. She had only reserved Kentucky, of all 
. her vast territorial possessions. Besides this princely domain thus donated, 
^ the United States owned scarce a fig-leaf of land. 

\ The cruel injustice and ingratitude of severing West Virginia from rfie 
3 Mother of Commonwealths and of Presidents and patriots^ during the anarchy 
; and disorders of the late civil war, and on the return of peace, making no 
=1 provision to indemnify her for so serious a spoliation, forms a dark chapter 
i of the period, that will ever stain with dishonor the authors of the wrong. 
A large public debt was left to her charge, as she sat childless and widowed 
f in her desolation, while this reduction of her territory and population fatally 
, impaired her ability to pay, and plunged her into a wreck of insolvency. 
( And yet for these misfortunes of her own, by the ungrateful wounds of ene- 
i) mies which her children are made to lament, she is reviled and taunted 
; l)y the very authors of the wrong. Hon. James G. Blaine, in his work, 
J "Twenty Years of Congress," very unsparingly condemns the measure. 
ij Says he : " To the old State of Virginia the blow was a heavy one. In the 
' years following the war, it added seriously to her financial embarrassment, 
I] and in many ways obstructed her prosperity. The anatomy of Virginia was 
ji alone disturbed. Upon her alone fell the penalty for secession, which if 
J due to one, was due to all. Texas and Florida retained their public lands 
if at the close of the war. Why were not these and others despoiled? Mex- 
ico was helpless in our hands when conquered by this country; yet our high 
. sense of justice would not permit the despoilment of our helpless neighbor. 
\ Fifteen millions were given her for the territory we wanted. We went even 
- further than this in our magnanimity, and assumed to pay four millions more 



V 



246 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of debts due by Mexico to our own citizens. Americans can but feel a deep 
personal interest in the good name 3^nd good fortune of a State so closely 
identified with the renown of the republic, with whose soil is mingled the 
dust of those to whom all States and all generations are debtors — the father 
of his country, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and chief 
projector of the national Constitution, the purest and the wisest of states- 
men." 

Some alarming symptoms of an invasion from the Southern tribes in the 
Tennessee valley led Colonel Benjamin Logan to call a meeting of citizens 
at Danville, where he communicated to the meeting the information he had 
received, that the Chickamaugas meditated an invasion of Kentucky. To 
this meeting so assembled, as well as to General Logan, the crisis seemed 
to demand the immediate undertaking of an expedition by the whites against 
these Southern Indians. But they were prevented from such a movement 
by insurmountable difficulties. No man, or set of men, within the district 
was vested with authority to call the militia into service. Ammunition suf- 
ficient for such a campaign was not to be found in the district. There was 
no authority to impress provision for the use of the militia serving on such 
an expedition. 

In this state of anarchy within, and hostility without, a resolution was 
adopted, recommending that each militia company elect one representative 
at Danville, the temporary capital, on December 27, 1784. Of this meet- 
ing, Samuel McDowell was made president, and Thomas Todd, clerk. The 
isolated condition of the country made it very difficult to secure the remedy 
for the growing evils, and especially the protective means for defense, 
which were so pressingly and often felt. They could see no better solution 
of the difficulties than by the formal separation of the District of Kentucky 
from the present Commonwealth, and its erection into an independent mem- 
ber of the American confederacy. 

By a unanimous vote, a resolution was passed, "that many inconveni- 
ences under which they labored might be remedied by the Legislature of 
Virginia, but that the great and substantial evils to which they were sub- 
jected were from causes beyond the power and control of the government, 
namely, from their remote and detached situation, and could never be 
remedied until the District had a government of its own." Yet, so great 
were the love and deference for Virginia, and respect for popular sentiment 
at home, that the representatives forbore to make application to the ma- 
ternal Commonwealth. It earnestly recommended the measure to the 
people, and that they elect representatives to a convention, to be held in 
May, at the ensuing election for delegates to the Virginia Legislature the 
coming April. It was an experiment hitherto untried in American politics. 
No instance of this process of separation and moral swarming in mutual har- 
mony and peace had yet been given, and the first precedent of a long line 
of future examples had to be set in the case of Kentucky. Not a newspaper 



THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY ABROAD. 247 

was issued as yet west of the mountains, and, as far as we are informed, no 
printing-press was in use. The circular address of this first convention was, 
therefore, copied and posted in manuscript. Twenty-five members were to 
be chosen, distributed to the three counties in proportion to population. 

On May 23d, the newly-elected members assembled in the second con- 
vention, at Danville, and resolved : First — That a petition be presented to 
the Legislative Assembly, praying that this District be established into a 
State separate from Virginia; Second — That another convention of repre- 
sentatives be elected, to meet at Danville on the second Monday in August, 
to take further under consideration the state of the District; Third — That 
this convention recommend that the election of deputies for the proposed 
assembly be on the principles of equal representation, on the basis of popu- 
lation. 

The significance of this last resolve will be better appreciated in the light 
of the fact that the House of Burgesses of Virginia — the Legislature — was 
distributed on the basis of territory more than on that of population. It 
must be remembered that political affairs, both of the Union and of the 
States, were yet in the chaos of transition from the old animus and forms of 
the monarchy to the new spirit and adjustments of the republic. In every 
experimental change of political autonomy since the declaration of inde- 
pendence, the spirit of personal liberty and equality was the instinctive 
breath of life within, showing how this modern people had learned to scorn 
the indignities of tyranny and to honor and exalt their own God-given man- 
hood. The doctrine was that the fabrics of political science, the most 
complex as well as the simplest, must receive their character from that of 
their citizenship and tenantry, and not from the inanimate materials of prop- 
erty, of offices, and of institutions of which they are incidentally com- 
posed. 

^It seemed like a strain of delicacy approaching timidity, that this con- 
vention referred to a third assemblage what its members could as well have 
done for the country. It was but wearying the patience and disappointing 
the reasonable expectations of the people. 

Nelson county had in January, 1785, been constituted, by legislative act, 
out of all that part of Jefferson county south of Salt river. The members 
of the third convention were, therefore, divisioned — six to the county of 
Jefferson, six to the county of Nelson, ten to the county of Lincoln, and 
eight to the county of Fayette. '^■T\\ty met in August at the same place as 
before, and the delegates present were from — 

Lincoln County — Samuel McDowell, George Muter, Christopher Irvin, 
William Kennedy, Benjamin Logan, Caleb Wallace, Harry Innes, John 
Edwards, and James Speed. 

"From Fayette — James Wilkinson, James Garrard, Levi Todd, John 
Coburn, James Trotter, John Craig, and Robert Patterson. 

I Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 207-215. 2 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 207. 



248 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

'■'■ From Jefferson — Richard Terrell, George Wilson, Benjamin Sebastian, 
and Philip Barbour. 

^^ From Nelson — Isaac Cox, Isaac Morrison, Andrew Hynes, Matthew 
Walton, James Morrison, and James Rogers. 

"Of the foregoing members, they elected Samuel McDowell president; 
and having organized themselves as a convention, proceeded to business. 

"The papers referred by the late convention being before them, were 
committed, and, after several days, reported on, as follows : 

"'The convention, according to the order of the day, resolved itself 
into a committee of the whole on the state of the district, and after some 
time spent therein Mr. President resumed the chair, and Mr. Muter reported 
that the committee had had under consideration the matters to them com- 
mitted, and having made several amendments, which he read in his place 
and afterward delivered to the clerk, they were again read and agreed to, 
as follows : 

" 'Your committee, having maturely considered the important matters 
to them referred, are of opinion that the situation of this district, upwards 
of five hundred miles from the seat of the present government, with the 
intervention of a mountainous desert of two hundred miles, passable only 
at particular seasons, and never without danger from hostile savages, pre- 
cludes every idea of a connection on republican principles ; and originates 
many grievances, among which we reckon the following : 

" '■First — It destroys every possibility of application to the supreme exec- 
utive power, for support or protection in case of emergency; and thereby 
subjects the district to continual hostilities and depredations of the savages; 
relaxes the execution of the laws, delays justice, and tends to loosen and 
dissever the bonds of government. 

" 'Second — It suspends the operation of the benign influence of mercy, 
by subjecting condemned persons, who may be deemed worthy of pardon, 
to tedious, languishing, and destructive imprisonment. 

" ' Third — It renders difficult and precarious the exercise of the first and 
dearest right of freemen, adequate representation ; as no person properly 
qualified can be expected, at the hazard of his life, to undergo the fatigue of 
long journeys, and to incur burdensome expenses, by devoting himself to 
the public service. 

" ' Fourth — It subjects us to penalties and inflictions which arise from 
ignorance of the laws ; many of which have their operation, and e.xpire 
before they reach the district. 

" 'Fifth — It renders a compliance with many of the duties required of 
sheriffs and clerks impracticable ; and exposes those officers, under the 
present revenue law, to inevitable destruction. 

" ' Sixth — It subjects the inhabitants to expensive and ruinous suits in 
the high court of appeals, and places the unfortunate poor completely in 
the power of the opulent. 



RECITAL OF GRIEVANCES. 249 

" ' Other grievances result from partial and retrospective laws, which are 
<:ontrary to the fundamental principles of free government, and subversive 
of the inherent rights of freemen — such as : 

'^ ^ First — The laws for the establishment and support of the district 
court, which, at the same time that we are subject to a general tax for the 
support of the civil list, and the erection of the public buildings, oblige us 
to build our own court-house, jail, and other buildings, by a special poll-tax 
imposed upon the inlmbitants of the district, and leaves several officers of 
the court without any certain provision. 

" ^Second — The law imposing a tax of five shillings per hundred acres 
on lands previously sold, and directing the payment thereof into the regis- 
ter's office at Richmond, before the patent shall issue ; the same principles 
which sanctify this law would authorize the Legislature to impose five pounds 
per acre on lands previously sold by Government on stipulated conditions, 
and for which an equivalent had been paid ; and is equally subversive of 
justice as any of the statutes of the British Parliament that impelled the 
good people to arms. 

" ' Third — General laws, partial and injurious in their operation. Such 
are the laws : 

" ' I. Concerning entries and surveys on the western waters ; 

" ' 2. Concerning the appointment of sheriffs; 

" '3. For punishing certain offenses injurious to the tranquillity of this 
Commonwealth. 

" ' Which last law prohibits, while we experience all the calamities which 
flow from the predatory incursions of hostile savages, from attempting any 
offensive operation ; a savage, unrestrained by any law, human or divine, 
despoils our property, murders our fellow-citizens, then makes his escape 
to the north-west side of the Ohio, is protected by this law. Now, 
• " 'Whereas, All men are born equally free and independent, and have 
certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, among which are the 
enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protect- 
ing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety : There- 
fore, 

'■'■'■ Resolved, That it is the indispensable duty of this convention, as 
they regard the prosperity and happiness of their constituents, themselves, 
and posterity, to make application to the General Assembly at the ensuing 
session, for an act to separate this district from the present government for- 
ever, on terms honorable to both and injurious to neither, in order that it 
may enjoy all the advantages, privileges, and immunities of a free, sovereign, 
and independent republic' 

" And this report and resolution were unanimously concurred in by the 
I members, whose names have been previously inserted. 

" In order to transmit the views which this convention took, the im- 
pressions received, and the sentiments imbibed and cherished by it, in rela- 



25° 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



tion to the local and political condition of the country, its grievances and 
its means of redress, the address to the Legislature will be inserted at large : 

"' Gentlemen: The subscribers, resident in the counties of Jefferson, 
Fayette, Lincoln, and Nelson, composing the district of Kentucky, being 
chosen at free elections held in these counties, respectively, by the freemen 
of the same, for the purpose of constituting a convention to take into con- 
sideration the general state of the district, and expressly to decide on the 
expediency of making application to your honorable body for an act of 
separation, deeply impressed with the importance of the measure, and 
breathing the purest filial affection, beg leave to address you on the mo- 
mentous occasion. 

'"The settlers of this distant region, taught by the arrangements of 
Providence, and encouraged by the conditions of that solemn compact for 
which they paid the price of blood, to look forward to a separation from the 
eastern parts of the Commonwealth, have viewed the subject leisurely at a 
distance, and examined it with caution on its near approach, irreconcilable 
as has been their situation to a connection with any community beyond the 
Appalachian mountains, other than the federal union ; manifold as have 
been the grievances flowing therefrom, which have grown with their growth, 
and increased with their population, they have patiently waited the hour 
of redress, nor even ventured to raise their voices in their own cause until 
youth, quickening into manhood, hath given them vigor and stability. 

" 'To recite minutely the causes and reasoning which have directed, and 
will justify, this address would, we conceive, be a matter of impropriety at 
this juncture. It would be preposterous for us to enter upon the support 
of facts and consequencae which we presume are incontestable; our seques- 
tered situation from the seat of government, with the intervention of a 
mountainous desert of two hundred miles, always dangerous, and passable 
only at particular seasons, precludes every idea of a connection on repub- 
lican principles. The patriots who formed our Constitution, sensible of 
the impracticability of connecting permanently in a free government the 
extensive limits of the Commonwealth, most wisely made provision for the 
act which we now solicit. 

"'To that sacred record we appeal. 'Tis not the ill-directed or in- 
considerate zeal of a few; 'tis not that impatience of power to which 
ambitious minds are prone, nor yet the baser consideration of personal 
interest, which influences the people of Kentucky; directed by superior 
motives, they are incapable of cherishing a wish unfounded in justice, and 
are now impelled by expanding evils and irremediable grievances, uni- 
versally seen, felt, and acknowledged, to obey the irresistible dictates of 
self-preservation, and seek for happiness by means honorable to them- 
selves, honorable to you, and injurious to neither. 

" 'We, therefore, with the consent, and by the authority, of our constit- 
uents, after the most solemn deliberation, being warned of every consequence 



CONCLUSION OF THE ADDRESS. 251 

' which can ensue for them, for ourselves, and for posterity unborn, do pray 
that an act may pass at the ensuing session of assembly, declaring and 
acknowledging the sovereignty and independence of this district. 

"'Having no object in view but the acquisition of that security and 

■ happiness which may be attained by scrupulous adherence to private justice 

■ and public honor, we should most willingly at this time enter into the 

■ adjustment of the concessions which are to be the condition of our separa- 
tion, did not our relative situation forbid such negotiation; the separation 

' we request being suggested by necessity, and being consonant to every 
principle of reason and justice, we are persuaded will be cheerfully granted; 
and that we shall be as cheerfully received into the continental union on 
the recommendation of our parent State. 

" 'Our application may exhibit a new spectacle in the history and politics 
of mankind — a sovereign power solely intent to bless its people, agreeing 
to a dismemberment of its parts, in order to secure the happiness of the 

' whole. And we fondly flatter ourselves from motives not purely local, it is 
to give birth to that catalogue of great events which, we persuade ourselves, 

■ are to diffuse throughout the world the inestimable blessings which mankind 
may derive from the American revolution. 

" 'We firmly rely that the undiminished luster of that spark which 
\l kindled the flame of liberty, and guided the United States of America to 
' peace and independence, will direct the honorable body, to whom we appeal 
^ for redress of manifest grievances, to embrace the singular occasion reserved 
p for them by Divine Providence, to originate a precedent which will liberalize 
' the policy of nations, and lead to the emancipation of enslaved millions. 

" 'In this address we have discarded the complimentary style of adu- 
p lation and insincerity. It becomes freemen, when speaking to freemen, 
' to employ the plain, manly, and unadorned language of independence, sup- 

■ ported by conscious rectitude.' 

"In this address is recognized the florid writer and eloquent orator, 
- General James Wilkinson. This gentleman had removed his family from 
I- Philadelphia to Lexington in the fall of the preceding year, and was now 
; for the first time elected a member of this convention; although it is not 
^ questioned but that he was the primary cause of its being called, to consider 
' the proceedings of the May convention, and was the author of the address 

to the people, which was sent out by that convention. If nature, education, 
' and some knowledge of parliamentary proceedings, had given him a decided 

advantage over the other members of the convention, he did not want 
' vanity to see it nor ambition to avail himself of circumstances so much in 

his favor, and so convertible to his purposes, at that time, it is supposed, 
' perfecdy laudable. 

"Chief-Justice George Muter and the attorney-general of the district, 

Harry Innes, were deputed to present it to the Legislature, and to offer their 

l>ersonal solicitation, as well as to give any verbal explanation, which might 



252 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

facilitate the passage of the much desired act — two worthy gentlemen for a 
mission of so much importance. 

"Disposition being made of these matters, the convention had yet to 
address the people of the district, and that was done in the following terms : 

'■' *■ To the Inhabitants of the District of Kentucky — Friends and country- 
men: Your representatives in convention having completed the important 
business for which they were specially elected, feel it their duty before they 
adjourn to call your attention to the calamities with which our country 
appears to be threatened. Blood has been spilled from the eastern to the 
western extremity of the district; accounts have been given to the convention 
from post St. Vincennes, which indicate a disposition in the savages for 
general war; in the meantime, if we look nearer home, we shall find our 
borders infested, and constant depredations committed on our property. 
Whatever may be the remote designs of the savages, these are causes suf- 
ficient to arouse our attention, that we may be prepared not only to defend, 
but to punish those who, unprovoked, offend us. God and nature have 
given us the power, and we shall stand condemned in the eyes of Heaven 
and mankind if we do not employ it to redress our wrongs, and assert our 
rights. 

"'The Indians are now reconnoitering our settlements, in order that 
they may hereafter direct their attacks with more certain effect, and we seem 
patiently to await the stroke of the tomahawk. Strange, indeed, it is that, 
although we can hardly pass a spot which does not remind us of the murder 
of a father or brother or friend, we should take no single step for our own 
preservation. Have we forgotten the surprise of Bryan's, or the shocking 
destruction of Kincheloe's station? Let us ask you — ask yourselves — what 
is there to prevent a repetition of such barbarous scenes ? Five hundred 
Indians might be conducted, undiscovered, to our very thresholds, and the 
knife may be put to the throats of our sleeping wives and children. For 
shame! let us arouse from our lethargy; let us arm, associate, and embody; let 
us call upon our officers to do their duty, and determine to hold in detestation 
and abhorrence, and treat as enemies to the community, every person who 
shall withhold his countenance and support of such measures as may be 
recommended for our common defense. Let it be remembered that a stand 
must be made somewhere; not to support our present frontier would be the 
height of cruelty, as well as folly; for should it give away, those who now 
hug themselves in security will take the front of danger, and we shall in a 
short time be huddled together in stations, a situation in our present cir- 
cumstances scarcely preferable to death. Let us remember that supineness 
and inaction may entice the enemy to general hostilities, while preparation 
and offensive movements will disconcert their plans, drive them from our 
borders, secure ourselves, and protect our property. Therefore, 

" ^Resolved, That the convention, in the name and behalf of the people, 
do call on the lieutenants, or commanding officers of the respective coun- 



Jl 



GENERAL JAMES WILKINSON. 253 

ties of this district, forthwith to carry into operation the law for regulating 
and disciplining the militia ; and that the emergency does not admit of de- 
lay on the part of any one. 

" 'Resolved, That it be recommended to the officers to assemble in their 
respective counties, and concert such plans as they may deem expedient for 
the defense of our country, or for carrying expeditions against the hostile 
nations of Indians.' 

"This address and these resolutions are from the same pen as the peti- 
tion to the Legislature. It will hardly escape remark, that the prayer for 
separation is for an acknowledgment of sovereignty and independence, while the 
address to the people and the last resolution imply an assumption of both. 

"Nor can it be ascertained that at the time any other scheme was formed, 
notwithstanding a subsequent period revealed an intrigue with Spain, which 
will be developed in the sequel. 

"Copies of the address to the people were industriously multiplied by the 
pen, in the absence of printing facilities, and circulated among them. That 
to the Legislature, in due time and form, was presented." 

The important issues, direct and remote, excited a profound interest 
among the people, and became topics of popular and general discussion. 

1 General James Wilkinsan, of whom mention has been made as taking 
a leading part in the several conventions at Danville, made his first appear- 
ance at Lexington in February, 1784, as the head of a trading and mercan- 
tile company made up at Philadelphia. From this time forward, for years, 
he was among the most conspicuous and active figures in the political and 
commercial circles of Kentucky. The presence, manners, and address of 
the man were calculated to attract attention and excite interest. Nature 
had endowed him with a passport which insured his favorable reception 
wherever he was seen and heard — a passport expressed in a language which 
captivated the hearer, and in a courtesy of style which disarmed suspicion 
and won the confidence of those whose intimacy he sought, on a first im- 
pression. A person, not quite tall enough to be perfecrty elegant, was com- 
pensated by its symmetry and strength. A countenance open, mild, and 
beaming with intelligence; a carriage firm, manly, and erect; manners 
bland, accommodating, and popular, enabled him to conciliate and win to 
his friendship many of the people of the day. Whether these graces of mind 
and person portrayed a character of sincerity and patriotic virtue, or not, is 
a question which the faithful pen of the historian has not settled, and which 
will be left for the reader himself to judge, in the subsequent pages. 

In the year 1784, Colonel Robert Johnson, whose residence had hitherto 
been at Bryan's station, removed to the Great Crossing, on Elkhorn, in Scott 
county. This was yet a very exposed frontier, and subsequently much in- 
fested by Indians, but steadily supported with the fortune and fortitude of 
others in like peril. 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 165. 



2 54 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

This year Rev, Augustine Eastin, of Bourbon county, and family, of 
whom Mrs. Taylor, of Ne\vport, was a member, were moving to Kentucky, 
in company with a large party of emigrants. They were overtaken by an- 
other party coming in also, whom Mr. Eastin urged to camp with them 
that night, as Indian signs had been seen near. ^ They declined, and camped 
further on, without even putting out pickets for the night. At midnight, 
they were attacked by Indians in force, and some twenty men, women, and 
children killed and scalped. A man, his wife, and two children became 
separated in the strife. The mother caught the youngest in her arms, and 
escaped to the woods, and finally reached Mr. Eastin's camp. The oldest 
child was slain, but the father escaped to the settlements. Two weeks after 
the arrival of Mr. Eastin's party at the settlements, the husband and wife 
were reunited, each supposing, up to that time, the other dead. 

An instance of generosity on the part of an Indian shows that they were 
not all, and always, destitute of the noble sentiments of our human nature, 
and is worthy to be recorded. Toward the close of 1784, Andrew Rowan 
was descending the Ohio with a party, in a boat, some two or three hundred 
miles below Louisville. 2 The boat tied up on the Indiana bank, one day, 
when Rowan strolled to the woods with a gun on his shoulder, but no am- 
munition. When he returned, the boat was gone, his comrades having been 
alarmed by Indian signs. Rowan started toward Vincennes, the nearest 
post, one hundred miles distant, but lost his way and got bewildered in the 
woods. Hearing a gun fire, and approaching the sound, he was discovered 
by an Indian, who raised his gun to shoot. Rowan presented the butt of 
his gun, when the Indian, with French politeness, did the same with his 
gun. Taking pity on Rowan's helpless condition, he led him to his wigwam, 
and treated him with great hospitality for a time, and then took him to Vin- 
cennes. Wishing to reward such generosity, Mr. Rowan arranged with a 
merchant to pay him three hundred dollars ; but the Indian refused to receive 
a dollar. He finally, to please Rowan, accepted a blanket; and wrapping 
it around him, with feeling, said, "When I wrap myself in it, I will think 
of you." 

Among the notable traditions of these eventful days was an incident of 
which the distinguished Judge Rowan was a witness in his boyhood days : 

"In the latter part of April, 1784, the father of the late Judge Rowan, 
with his family and five other families, set out from Louisville in two flat- 
bottomed boats for the Long Falls of Green river. ^ The intention was to 
descend the Ohio to the mouth of Green river, and ascend that river to the 
place of destination. The families were in one boat and their cattle in 
the other. When the boats had descended the Ohio about one hundred 
miles, and were neaf the middle of it, gliding along very securely, as it was 
thought, about ten o'clock in the night, a prodigious yelling of Indians 
was heard some two or three miles below, on the northern shore; and they 

I Collins, Vol. 1., p. 115. 2 Collins, Vol. I., p. 153. 3 Dr. Drake's Oxford Address. 



OUTMANEUVERING THE INDIANS. 255 

had floated but a short distance further down the river when a number of 
jfires were seen on that shore. The yelHng continued, and it was concluded 
ij they had captured a boat, which had passed these two about midday, and 
I were massacreing the captives. The two boats were lashed together, and the 
[ best practicable arrangements were made for defending them. The men 
! were distributed by Mr. Rowan to the best advantage in case of an attack ; 
f they were seven in number, including himself. The boats were neared to 
I the Kentucky shore, with as little noise by the oars as possible; but avoided 
[ too close an approach to that shore, lest there might be Indians there also. 
\ The fires of the Indians were extended along the bank at intervals for half 
t^ a mile or more, and as the boats reached a point about opposite the central 
I; fire, they were discovered and commanded to come to. All on board re- 
mained silent, for Mr. Rowan had given strict orders that no one should 
utter any sound but that of his rifle, and not even that until the Indians 
should come within powder-burning distance. They united in a most terrific 
yell, rushed to their canoes, and gave pursuit. The boats floated on in 
silence — not an oar was pulled. The Indians approached within less than 
a hundred yards, with a seeming determination to board. Just at this 
. moment Mrs. Rowan arose from her seat, collected the axes, and placed one 
I by the side of each man, where he stood with his gun, touching him on 
the knee with the handle of the ax, as she leaned it up by him against the 
side of the boat, to let him know it was there, and retired to her seat, 
' retaining a hatchet for herself. The Indians continued hovering on the rear, 
and yelling, for nearly three miles, when, awed by the inference which they 
, drew from the silence observed on board, they relinquished further pursuit. 
None but those who have a practical acquaintance with Indian warfare can 
form a just idea of the terror which their hideous yelling is calculated to 
inspire. Judge Rowan, who was then ten years old, states that he could 
never forget the sensations of that night, or cease to admire the fortitude 
and composure displayed by his mother on that trying occasion. There 
were seven men and three boys in the boats, with nine guns in all. Mrs. 
Rowan, in speaking of the incident afterward, in her calm way, said : 'We 
made 2^ providential escape, for which we ought to feel grateful.'" 

^ About this time, some Southern Indians from Chickamauga town stole 
some horses in Lincoln county, and were pursued through Tennessee to the 
neighborhood of their village by three young men — Davis, Caffree, and 
McGlure. There they fell in with three Indians, and in the desperate man- 
to-man fight that followed, Davis and Caffree and two of the Indians were 
killed. McClure, alone in the enemy's country and surrounded by dead 
bodies, set out toward Kentucky. In half an hour's travel, he met an In- 
dian advancing on a horse with a bell on, and accompanied by an Indian 
boy on foot. McClure advanced with a friendly air of confidence and ex- 
tended his hand, which greeting the Indian seemed as frankly to reciprocate. 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 473. 



256 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Dismounting, he sat down on a log, lighted his pipe, took a few puffs, and 
handed it to the white. Prett}' soon another bell was heard, and another 
party of Indians appeared. The first Indian now coolly informed McClure 
that as soon as his comrades arrived he would be bound, with his feet tied 
under the horse, and carried off a prisoner. To make the matter more 
lucid than his Indian-English words could convey, and to spice his taunts 
with a little grim humor of sarcasm, he got astride the log, and, locking 
his legs under it, mimicked the actions of a prisoner in such a predicament. 
McClure, brave and desperate as a baffled lion, determined to acknowledge 
the playful candor of his sudden acquaintance, as quick as thought raised 
his rifle, drove a bullet through his brain, and dashed off into the woods, 
while the boy sprang on the belled horse and scampered off in the opposite 
direction. 

McClure had not gone over a mile or two before he was beset by half a 
dozen little dogs, which the Indians had put upon his trail. They were ex- 
ceedingly tenacious and worrying, frequently running between his legs and 
throwing him down. After repeated falls, his eyes blinded with dust, 
and exhausted with the worry, he finally fell, and lay with his face to the 
ground, expecting each moment to be tomahawked. To his agreeable sur- 
prise, no Indians appeared ; and the dogs, after tugging at him until they 
had torn his clothes nearly all off, turned away and left him. He resumed his 
journey, and reached Kentucky in safety. So ragged, tattered, and be- 
grimed was his person and the remnants of his garments, that an old lady 
member of the family, who first spied him some distance from the cabin, 
ran toward the house in alarm. He ran after her, and, to reassure her, 
began to whistle a familiar reel he was accustomed to play on the violin. 
She caught the numbers of the air, and, turning, recognized him, and cried 
out, " Lord, Rab, is that you?" "Yes, Aunt Jenny, all that's left of me," 
was the answer; when soon the open arms of all received him home. 

^Captain James Ward, afterward a citizen of Mason county, with his 
nephew and five others, was descending the Ohio in an old boat, encumbered 
with some baggage and seven horses, with no bulwark other than a pine 
plank above each gunnel. As the boat drifted near the Ohio shore, sud- 
denly a large body of Indians appeared on the bank and opened a heavy fire. 
The nephew started and seized his rifle at sight of the enemy, but was shot 
dead before he could fire. The horses were all killed or fatally wounded. 
By the coolness and skillful management of Captain Ward, the boat was 
oared toward the opposite shore, and the defense made as efficient as pos- 
sible. In the midst of the scene of terror and blood, a most ludicrous part 
was played by a fat Dutchman, whose weight was about three hundred 
pounds. He found it impossible to hide all his ponderous bulk behind the 
narrow plank above the gunnels; and, try as he would, there was always 
some part of his person in sight for the Indians to fire at, and bullets 

I McClung, p. 185. 



MRS. M CLURE S PREDICAMENT. 257 

whizzed close by continually. He changed his position several times; but, 
shift as he would, the balls came only faster. Throwing himself at last on 
his face, the vastness of his posterial luxuriance remained an elevated object 
of attraction to the marksmanship of the savages. In a frenzy of despair, 
he raised his head and turned his eye toward his tormentors, and exclaimed, 
"Oh, now, quit tat tarn nonsense tere, vill you?" The boat and crew es- 
caped without further loss, the Indians having no canoes to follow. 

In March of 1785, a body of Indians surrounded the house of Mr. 
Elliott, situated at the mouth of Kentucky river, Carroll county, and furi- 
ously assaulted it. Most of the family escaped, but Elliott was killed and 
the house burnt. A year or two after, Captain Ellison built a block-house 
near the same spot, and was successively driven from the post for two sum- 
mers after, by superior Indian forces. Though General Charles Scott built 
another block-house and picketing here in 1789, it was still much troubled 
by Indian marauders. In 1792, the town of Port William, now CarroUton, 
was laid out. 

i"In 1785, the camp of an emigrant by the name of McClure was 
assaulted in the night by Indians, near the head of Skaggs' creek, in Lin- 
coln county, and six whites killed and scalped. 

"Mrs. McClure ran into the woods with her four children, and could 
have made her escape with three, if she had abandoned the fourth; this, an 
infant in her arms, cried aloud, and thereby gave the savages notice where 
they were. She heard them coming. The night, the, grass, and the bushes 
offered her concealment without the infant, but she was a mother, and de- 
termined to die with it. The like feeling prevented her from telling her 
three eldest to fly and hide. She feared they would be lost if they left 
her side ; she hoped they would not be killed if they remained. In the 
meantime, the Indians arrived and extinguished both fears and hopes in 
the blood of three of the children. The youngest and the mother they 
made captives. She was taken back to the camp, where there was plenty 
of provisions, and compelled to cook for her captors. In the morning, they 
compelled her to mount an unbroken horse and accompany them on their 
return home. 

"Intelligence of this catastrophe was conveyed to Whitley's station, but 
he was not at home. A messenger, however, was dispatched after him by 
Mrs. Whitley, who at the same time sent others to warn and collect his 
company. On his return, he found twenty-one men collected to receive 
his orders. With these, he directed his course to the war-path, intending to 
intercept the Indians returning home. Fortunately, they had stopi)ed 
to divide their plunder, and Whitley succeeded in gaining the path in ad- 
vance of them. He immediately saw that they had not passed, and prepared 
for their arrival. His men, being concealed in a favorable position, had not 
waited long before the enemy appeared, dressed in their spoils. As they 

I Collins, Vol. II,, 760 

17 



258 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

approached, they were met by a deadly fire from the concealed whites, which 
killed two, wounded two others, and dispersed the rest. Mrs. McClure, her 
child, and a negro woman were rescued, and the six scalps taken by the 
Indians at the camp recovered." 

Ten days after this event, a Mr. ISIoore and his party, also emigrants, 
were defeated two or three miles from Raccoon creek, on the same road. 
In this attack, the Indians killed nine persons and scattered the rest. Upon 
the receipt of the news, Captain Whitley raised thirty men, and, under a 
similar impression as before, that they would return home, marched to inter- 
cept them. On the sixth day, in a cane-brake, he met the enemy, with 
whom he found himself face to face before he received any intimation of 
their proximity. He instantly ordered ten of his men to the right, as many 
to the left, and the others to dismount on the spot with him. The Indians, 
twenty in number, were mounted on good horses, and dressed in the plun- 
dered clothes. Being in the usual Indian file, and the rear pressing on the 
front, they were brought into full view; but in an apparent panic, they took 
to flight. In the pursuit, three Indians were killed, and twenty-eight horses 
and other property recaptured. 

As Colonel Thomas Marshall, from Virginia, was descending the Ohio in 
a flat-boat, he was hailed from the northern shore by a man who announced 
himself as James Girty, and who said that his brother, Simon Girty, had 
placed him there to warn all boats of the danger of being attacked by In- 
dians. He told them that efforts would be made to decoy them ashore by 
renegade white men, under various pretexts. He bade them steel their 
hearts against all such appeals, and to keep the middle of the river. He 
said that his brother Simon regretted the injuries he had done the whites, 
and would gladly repair them as much as possible, to be re-admitted to their 
society, having become estranged from the Indians. ^ 

This repentance of Girty, if sincere, availed him nothing, and he re- 
mained with his red friends until he was cut down and trodden under foot 
by Colonel Richard M. Johnson's mounted Kentuckians at the battle of the 
Thames, in 18 r4. However mitigating the indignities and slights which 
formed the pretexts for abandoning his own people and adopting life with 
the savages, the acts of remorseless cruelty and the injuries he had inflicted 
stigmatized him as an unpardonable outlaw against his race. His acquies- 
cence and exultation at the slow torture and burning at the stake, of his 
old neighbor and acquaintance from Pennsylvania, Colonel Crawford, and 
other bloody crimes against humanity known of him, would have made it 
worth his life to come again among his kind. There is a traditional account 
that his resentment and treason had their beginning in the camp of General 
Lewis, on the day before the bloody battle of Point Pleasant, at the mouth 
of Kanawha. Girty and an associate had been acting as scouts and spies 
for the Virginia army for some weeks or months, for which they had been 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 567. 



ACCOUNT OF GIRTY S DESERTION. 259 

paid nothing. They called at General Lewis' quarters and urgently sought 

a compensation. On some words of provocation, the general violently 

assaulted them with a cane. As they retreated through the door, Girty, 

with bruised and bleeding face, turned to General Lewis, with either hand 

resting on a door post, and fiercely said to him: " Z> — n you, sir, your 

/quarters shall swim in blood for this ! " and instantly placed himself beyond 

pursuit. On the next day, as the colonel was preparing to cross the Ohio 

and unite his forces with the main body under Governor Dunmore, his wing 

of the army was suddenly attacked by fifteen hundred warriors under the 

noted chief Cornstalk, and the heaviest and bloodiest battle on Virginia soil 

I was fought. Girty had deserted to the Indian army, and piloted it to the 

I best advantage for a surprise attack on the Virginians. Only the veteran 

bravery and skill of the latter saved them from bloody disaster. But the 

. glamour of romance is spoiled by the better authenticated facts of history, 

: that Girty, Elliott, and McKee did not desert their kind and color until 1778. 

; In that year they left Pittsburgh together and joined the Indians. Whether 

: a breach between General Lewis and himself had anything to do with his 

unnatural alienation, we can not learn from the data. The only redeeming 

, trait in Girty's career was his rescue of Simon Kenton and kindly care of 

: him afterward. He and Kenton had been comrades in years gone by, and 

} the old feelings of friendly sympathy overcame the indulged ferocity of his 

nature. 



26o 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

(1786-90.) 



Madison county organized. 

Population of Kentucky thirty thou- 
sand. 

Virginia passes the act for separation. 

Conditions that Congress admits Ken- 
tucky to the Union. 

Intrigues of France and Spain to induce 
separation. 

Incited by Spain, Southern tribes more 
hostile. 

Fifteen hundred settlers murdered by 
Indians in Kentucky in seven years. 

Clark's treaties broken. 

United States Constitution adopted. 

Virginia the tenth State to ratify. 

Federal inabilities. 

Old confederacy dissolved. 

First administration. 

Indians raid the Beargrass settlements. 

Colonel Christian pursues them, and is 
killed. 

His character. 

Higgins attacked. 

John Logan follows Indians south. 

Massacre of McKnitt's immigrants. 

Hardin's hght at Saline. 

Congress gives no relief against Indian 
raids. 

Clark authorized, marches against the 
Wabash towns. 

Poor results. 

Demoralized army returns without meet- 
ing the enemy. 

Clark's intemperance disqualifies him. 

Fourth convention for separation. 

No quorum. 

Virginia Legislature passes a second act 
of consent. 

Surprise and confusion at postpone- 
ment. 

British still retain the forts, and incite 
the Indians. 



Jealousy of States' rights. 

Federal Union yet in doubt. 

Grandeur of the experiment of free gov- 
ernment. 

Kentucky delegates to the Virginia As- 
sembly vote eleven to three against the 
Federal Constitution, 

The spirit of open secession rife. 

General Wilkinson leads the party. 

Minister Jay suspected by Western 
men. 

Letter of Pittsburgh committee. 

Of Kentucky committee. 

Selfishness of North-east States. 

The facts. 

Jay's treaty, surrendering the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi, fails in Congress. 

The Kentucky Gazette, the first newspa- 
per published west of the mountains, ap- 
pears. 

Convention at Danville. 

Its proceedings. 

General VViIkiusou opens trade with the 
Spanish authorities at New Orleans. 

The commandant, General Miro, grants 
him exclusive privileges of the sale of 
tobacco, of deposit in the Government 
stores, and of the navigation of the lower 
Mississippi. 

The Federalist party charges Wilkinson 
•with becoming a Spanish subject, and 
with treasonable designs. 

Congress grants Kentucky a member. 

John Brown elected. 

Sixth convention for separation meets 
at Danville, Kentucky. 

So tantalized with delays, that disunion 
is proposed. 

Only veneration for Virginia restrains. 

Congressman Brown reports strong op- 
position from New England to the admis- 
,ion of Kentucky. 



MADISON COUNTY ORGANIZED. 



261 



Don Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, 
urges Kentucky to secede and erect an 
independent government. 

Offers the free navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi, and exclusive trade through New 
Orleans with Mexico and all the American 
provinces of Spain. 

Refuses this to the United States. 

Two parties form in Kentucky. 

The Court Party favor contingent seces- 
sion. 

The Country Party for union upon any 
terms. 

Violent agitations. 

Spanish intrigues and tempting offers. 

Many leading men and the majority of 
the people of the Court party irritated by 
Federal neglect and delays. 

General Government warned of the dan- 
ger. 

Propositions made through Congress- 
man Brown. 

Judge Muter's letter warning of treason. 

Judge Innes declines to prosecute men 
who, in self-protection, kill raiding In- 
dians. 

Seventh convention, at Danville, dis- 
cusses the mode of separation. 

All finally agree to wait on State and 
Federal relief for a time longer. 

General Wilkinson's address. 

Address to Congress. 

Kentucky disbarred from commerce with 



the Atlantic by distance and mountain bar- 
riers. 

The navigation of the Mississippi vital 
to her future. 

By delay, Virginia absorbing or selling 
the best lands in Kentucky. 

Wilkinson a Revolutionary soldier. 

His life and history. 

Of bold and enterprising spirit. 

His party determined that the right of 
navigating the Western waters shall not 
be bartered away. 

No party desired to make Kentucky a 
Spanish dependence. 

Colonel Thomas Marshall's letter to 
President Washington. 

Mrs. Skegg's house attacked by Indians. 

Bloody results. 

Merrill shot in his door. 

Mrs. Merrill barricades, and kills or 
wounds seven Indians. 

Drennon's Lick station captured. 

Attack on a boat on Salt river. 

Desperate and bloody fighting under 
Cripps and Crist. 

Harassing warfare on Ohio river boats. 

Lancaster's hardships. 

Dr. Connolly sent from Canada by Brit- 
ish authority to Lexington, to sound the 
sentiment for secession. 

Escapes lynching as a spy. 

Cincinnati first platted. 

Mason and Woodford counties created. 



^ On the 26th of August, 1786, the county of Madison was organized at 
the house of Captain George Adams, about two miles north of Richmond, 
Kentucky. Its first justices were George Adams, John Snoddy, Christopher 
Irvine, David Gass, James Barnett, John Boyle, James Thomson, Archie 
Wood, Nicholas, George, and Joseph Kennedy. These officials were all 
commissioned by Patrick Henry, then, for the second time, governor of 
Virginia. Colonel James Barnett was placed in command of the militia of 
the county. 

The population of Kentucky had increased at this date to about thirty 

it thousand, and a feeling of confidence in their abihty for self-defense and 

self-government was well nigh universal. The memorial of the Danville 

convention had been received by the parent Commonwealth in that spirit 

of indulgence and magnanimity whicli characterized the temper of its people 



I Manuscript notes of William Chenault's History of Madison County. 



262 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

in its political relations of that day. In January, 17S6, the Virginia Assem- 
bly passed the act in faYor of the proposed separation. ^ The arriYal of the 
act did not tend to allay the discussions among the people of the important 
step about to be taken. The provisions for prudent delays in the successive 
procedures were at variance with the ardor and impatience observable in 
the convention which applied for separation, and among the people, who 
had seen no reasons for delay. It was satisfactory, however, that the act 
of severance was placed on the will of the free citizenship, holding still to 
the parent precedent of equal representation by counties. The act con- 
stituted a main feature in the birth of the new Commonwealth, and we 
transcribe it, with small abridgment, for the more intelligible view of the 
reader : 

'•The preamble referred to the express desire of the good people of the 
District of Kentucky that the same should be erected into a separate State, 
and be formed into an independent member of the American Union; and 
the General Assembly, judging that such a partition of the Commonwealth 
was rendered expedient by the remoteness of the more fertile, which must 
be the most populous, part of the said district, and by the interjacent natural 
impediments to a convenient and regular communication therewith ; where- 
fore, 

" '^Be it enacted, etc.. That on the respective court days in August next 
ensuing, the/r^Y male inhabitants of the district should elect representatives, 
to continue in appointment for one year, with the powers and for the pur- 
poses to be mentioned in the act — for Jefferson, five; for Xelson, five; for 
Fayette, five; for Bourbon, five; for Lincoln, five; for Madison, five, and 
for Mercer, five, representatives; to meet in Danville on the fourth Monday 
of September following, to determine whether it be expedient that it should 
be erected into an independent State, on the terms and conditions following: 

' ' ' First — That the boundary between the proposed State and the State 
of Virginia shall remain the same as at present separates the district from 
the residue of the Commonwealth. 

" 'Second — That the proposed State shall take upon itself a just propor- 
tion of the public debt of this State. 

" 'Third — That all private rights and interests in lands within the said 
district derived from the laws of Virginia, prior to such separation, shall 
remain valid and secure under the laws of the proposed State, and shall be 
determined by the laws now existing in this State. 

" 'Fourth — That the use and navigation of the river Ohio, so far as the 
territory of the proposed State, or the territory which shall remain within 
the limits of this Commonwealth, lies thereon, shall be free and common to 
the citizens of the United States.' 

"And if the convention should approve of the erection of the district 
into an independent State on the foregoing terms, they were to fix a daj 

I MarshalJ, Vol. I., p. 112. 



THE BETROTHAL OF KENTUCKY. 263 

posterior \o the ist of September, 1787; on which the authority of Virginia, 
and of her laws under the exceptions aforesaid, were to cease and determine 
forever. Provided, however, that prior to the ist day of June, 1787, the 
United States, in Congress, should assent to the erection of the said district 
into an independent State. 

"The act was to be transmitted to the Virginia delegates in Congress, 
who were instructed to use their endeavors to obtain from Congress a 
speedy act for admitting the new State into the Union." 

The elected delegates should meet in September following this action. 
If they approved the act of separation, not until after September, 1787, 
should the formal divorce have effect; and not then unless Congress should, 
prior to June ist, give assent, and admit Kentucky as one of the States of 
the Federal Union. That the vested rights of Virginia and of private persons 
in Kentucky domain should be protected was natural enough; and it was 
but reasonable that the obligations and good faith toward the United States 
should be observed by an important part of Virginia, as by the whole; but 
it is more than a suspicion that the old mother Commonwealth was watching 
with jealous eye the oglings of those seductive and bland cavaliers, France 
and Spain, who were but too eager to pay new court to the prospective 
transmontane maiden debutante, with a coveted dowry ; and who, in her 
coyness with several rival suitors, might yet be betrayed into a mesalliance. 

The temptation came, and only the inflexible patriotism and love of 
the institutions of liberty rescued Kentucky from the unnatural embraces of 
her Gallic suitors, and saved her to the Federal Union. Prudish Virginia, 
therefore, made it a condition that before she could give final consent there 
must be a betrothal, and Congress must recognize and place in the galaxy 
the fourteenth star. The ordeal was nigh that would tax the submissive 
patience of the backwoodsmen, as the crucial past had tried their fortitude 
and daring. 

In all these years since the signing of the treaty of peace, in 1783, the 
British Government had, on various pretexts, refused to deliver the posts on 
the North-west frontier, the tenacious holding of which gave more of im- 
punity and opportunity to the Indians to renew their hostile raids upon the 
whites. Spain, having been thus far disappointed in controlling the rela- 
tions of Kentucky in the treaty adjustments, removed her restraints from 
the Southern tribes, and these were, more than ever before, harassing the 
frontiersmen. ^ There were not lacking some irritating causes on the other 
side. From the date of the signing of the articles of peace, in 1783, until 
1790, the record bears witness to the slaughter of fifteen hundred men, 
women, and children within the borders of Kentucky, besides taking two 
thousand horses and much property. Yet these suffering people were asked 
to be patriotic, law-abiding, and patient. 

Generals Clark, Butler, and Parsons negotiated a treaty with the Indians 

I Virginia Calendar, Vol. III., p. 607. 



264 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

at Fort Mcintosh, at the mouth of Great Miami, on the i6th of October, 
1785. In ten days after, the Indians raided the settlements near Limestone, 
did some killing, and stole sixty horses. In January following. General 
Clark negotiated another treaty with the old enemies, the Shawanees and 
Delawares, and the same year Indian murders and outrages increased over 
those of the past three years. Yet the Kentuckians must adorn themselves 
with the virtues of patience and patriotism, and endure these tortures of 
long waiting until order should come out of chaos. 

The Constitution of the United States was not adopted in convention 
until the 17th of September, 1787 ; and not of effect until, as by its pro- 
vision, it was ratified by nine States. Virginia was the tenth to ratify, 
which she did on the 26th of June, 1788, by a vote of eighty-eight to 
seventy-eight. Until the adoption of the Federal Constitution the general 
government was, of course, administered under the " Articles of Confed- 
eration and Perpetual Union " adopted by the Continental Congress, on the 
15th of November, 1777. The transition of jurisdiction and administration 
from the improvised government of the revolutionary period to the suc- 
cessive one formed for an era of peace and stability was, from the force of 
circumstances, an occasion of indecision and doubt, if not of palpable 
chaos. New York delayed her constitutional covenant longer than Virginia, 
while North Carolina ratified at the end of two years, and Rhode Island 
three. It was within the elective power of any one, or all, of the States to 
have declined to enter the constitutional compact ; yet, when it was adopted 
by nine States, the force and effect of such majority action was the dissolu- 
tion of the union of the States as based on the Articles of Confederation, 
and the formation of the government unit on the terms of the new Federal 
Constitution. 

When the nine States had ratified, therefore, the dissolution of the old 
union of the thirteen was the necessary sequence, and the four States with- 
holding consent were adrift as dissociated Commonwealths, isolated and 
aimless of purpose, and too exposed and feeble for exclusive sovereignty. 
Fortunately for Kentucky, the interval of acquiescence on the part of 
Virginia was of duration too brief for any unhappy results. 

George Washington was installed the first President ; and the first Con- 
gress under the Constitution assembled on the 4th of March, 1789. The 
old government was disintegrating, and the disposition was to refer all im- 
portant matters to the new. In the meantime, it was more comfortable and 
convenient for the Eastern States, now in rest and security from the horrors 
of war, to adjourn the plaints and appeals for attention from the trans- 
montane people, who alone were left to be the victims of broken treaties 
and of savage atrocities growing out of these infractions 

In the midst of the distracting confusion of the day, it would be unjust 
to attribute designed wrong toward the people of Kentucky by any inter- 
ested party to whom they looked for relief and redress. They had the 



EULOGY OF COLONEL CHRISTIAN. 265 

means of defense within themselves, but were waiting upon Federal or State 
authority to organize and use the same. The circumstances seem to form 
a coincidence of misfortune, rather than to point out any unusual fault on 
the part of the responsible jurisdictions. It was but the common phase of 
human nature. Had the people around the centers of any one of the 
States on the Atlantic slopes been subjected to the same sufferings and out- 
rages that were visited on the devoted heads of the Kentuckians, they 
would have been quickly redressed by the General Government; but these 
were not expected to feel and to do for distant and unrepresented fellow- 
citizens as they would for themselves. The neglect and indifference shown, 
but repeat the almost unbroken examples of folks bearing with patience and 
composure the ills and misfortunes of neighbors, provided those neighbors 
will be-ir all the griefs and privations of the same. 

i"In the month of April, the Indians, as they had done before, stole 
horses on Beargrass, with which they crossed the Ohio, thereby expecting to 
escape pursuit, according to former experience. But Colonel William Chris- 
tian, having raised a party of men, crossed the river, determined that these 
robbers should no longer evade his pursuit by flying to their own forests, 
although north-west of the great stream. About twenty miles within the 
Indian territory, he came up with these freebooters, attacked and totally 
destroyed them, but fell in the conflict, with one of his men. 

"In the death of Colonel Christian, Kentucky sustained a most sensible 
and important loss. He had migrated from Virginia the preceding year and 
settled on Beargrass, where he was distinguished for his intelligence, activity, 
and enterprise. He had been used to the Indians from an early period of 
his life, had distinguished himself as an officer, acquired much practical in- 
formation, and possessed the manners and accomplishments of a man of cul- 
tivated mind. He was a Virginian by birth, and served, when a young man, 
as a captain in Colonel Byrd's regiment, which had been ordered, in the time 
of Braddock's war, to the south-western frontier of his native State. In this 
service he obtained the reputation of a brave, active, and skillful partisan. 
After peace, he married the sister of Patrick Henry, settled in the county 
of Bottetourt, and was made a colonel in the militia. His natural bias was 
strong toward military affairs. In 1774, Colonel Christian raised three hun- 
dred volunteers, with whom he joined the army of General Andrew Lewis, 
at the mouth of the great Kanawha, on the night after the battle, already 
noticed, at the Point, having performed an extraordinary march of near two 
hundred miles, to arrive in time for the expected battle, which he missed 
by half a day. With General Lewis, he crossed the Ohio, and was with 
Dunmore at the treaty which ensued. 

"Colonel Christian had attained a high reputation for his acquirements 
and knowledge, both civil and military. In 1785, he removed his family to 
Kentucky, on his own land in Jefferson county. Being about forty-two 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 223. 



266 . HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

years of age, he felt all his former activity of disposition, all his former at- 
tention to the safety of his country, and participated in the active means of 
repelling the predatory parties of savages who infested his neighborhood. 

"The ideas of separation and of independent government having been 
familiarized in Kentucky, although Colonel Christian had kept himself pretty 
much out of the debate, he was frequently spoken of by his acquaintances 
as the first governor of the new Commonwealth. The event of his death, 
as mentioned, terminated these anticipations, so agreeable to the public, and 
so honorable to him." 

^Higgins' block house, a mile or so above Cynthiana, on Licking, was- 
about this time attacked, and young McCombs and McFall mortally 
wounded before they could get under protection. The garrison was weak^ 
and a messenger must be sent to Hinkson's or Harrison's for aid. All de- 
clined the hazard, until Mr. E. Williams, afterward a citizen of Covington, 
volunteered the attempt. The fort Avas on a precipitous cliff. He sprang 
down, trusting to the thicket of undergrowth to break his fall, and reached 
the ground with a brush of limb he had grasped and broken off in the 
descent. Recovering from the jar, he crossed Licking, and followed a cow- 
path on the opposite side. The body of the Indians lay ambushed in a 
field of growing corn breast high,, while a few of their number exposed 
themselves to decoy the garrison from the fort. Williams, from his vantage 
ground on the other side of the river, shouted back, to assure his friends 
of his safety, and to let the savages know that re-enforcements would be on 
them. The Indians immediately scampered off, and, though Williams re- 
turned with friendly aid in an hour's time, they were beyond reach. 

Captain John Logan, of Lincoln county, received advices of some killing 
and robbing done by a band of Southern Indians on Fishing creek. He 
promptly collected a body of neighbors, got upon the trail, and gave chase, 
following the enemy into Tennessee. Here he overtook and brought them 
to bay, killing a number and dispersing the remainder. He recaptured all 
the stolen property and a considerable amount of furs belonging to the In- 
dians. 

In October, 1786, a large number of families, known as McKnitt's Com- 
pany, coming into Kentucky, were surprised near Laurel river, and over 
twenty killed, and the remainder dispersed or taken prisoners. It seemed a 
favorite method with these prowling murderers to lay in wait for and massacre 
parties of emigrants coming in, sparing neither sex nor age, as every scalp 
counted one, and the slaughter was with less danger and resistance from 
those unfamihar with Indian warfare. 

2 Captain William Hardin, a noted Indian fighter and hunter, had settled 
in what is now Breckinridge county, and, learning that Indians were build- 
ing a town at Saline, beyond the Wabash, in Illinois, and deeming this a 
dangerous proximity, collected a force of eighty bold foresters and led 

I Notes of E. E. W'illiams. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 97. 



II 



AN ARMY IS RAISED. 267 

them against these savages. Coming upon the town or camp suddenly, they 
found but three Indians in possession, the main body having gone out on a 
hunt. These were shot down before they could escape. Supposing that the 
main body would return toward the close of the day from their hunt, 
Hardin selected a motte of timber situated in a prairie, where he ambushed 
his men, and gave orders not to fire until the Indians were in close range, 
and at a given signal. In due time, the Indians, seemingly about one hun- 
dred in number, came in view, and when yet at long range, one of the 
rangers inopportunely fired his rifle, and the battle opened. The savages 
charged boldly, and at the first volley Captain Hardin was shot by a ball 
through both thighs and physically disabled. Sorely wounded as he was, 
he coolly seated himself on a log, and, in resolute and inspiring words, 
rallied his men to battle, and delivered his orders of command to the close 
of the action, and with as much self-possession as if on dress parade. An- 
imating his soldiers with his Spartan fortitude, they fought for victory and 
won it. The savages were put to flight, after losing one-third their number. 
Many times the fight was hand-to-hand, with tomahawk, or knife, or clubbed 
gun. The loss of the whites was severe. 

Many other incidents of rencounters, of skirmishes, and of violent out- 
rages might be gathered from the dim chronicles of the past, and many 
more are of faded tradition, with which it would serve no worthy purpose 
to burden this history. How many of those who were comparative strangers 
and without interested kindred and friends in the labyrinthine wilderness 
of Kentucky, how many of small and defenseless family groups of emi- 
grants moving in through the forest range to find homes in the settlements, 
and how many of straggling hunters and soldiers were waylaid and mas- 
sacred, of whom even tradition could take no notice, or could give but a 
conjectural doubt for a few years of time, are among the mysteries passed 
under the veil of oblivion, not to be revealed in time. 

The impunity of savage outrages became intolerable. True, there were 
exceptional bad men among the whites, who depredated at times upon 
the Indians; but with the Indians, the vicious and murderous class was the 
general mass, while the peaceably disposed were the exceptional few. The 
causes for retaliatory measures were mainly, and almost wholly, of their 
own creation, and called for decisive punishment. 

The governor of Virginia felt himself constrained to assume the responsi- 
bility of action, while Congress hesitated, or took no measure on the subject 
of the governor's reference to them, the defense of the frontiers. Some 
general instructions were issued by him to the commandants of counties, to 
prepare the means of defense. It was determined to raise an army, and 
to place General Clark at the head, and march against the Indians on the 
Wabash. Such was the excited state of feeling, that one thousand men were 
soon rallied and assembled at Louisville. The provision and ammunition 
were shipped in nine keel-boats, to be transported by water to St. Vincent's, 



268 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

while the troops marched there by land. The doubts and delays of naviga- 
tion made the arrival of the same uncertain. 

The troops reached the destined point, and lay waiting nine days for the 
arrival of the boats, which were detained by low water in the Wabash. On 
inspection, it was found that one -half the provisions were spoiled. This 
proved very unfortunate. A spirit of discontent had already manifested itself 
in camp, and this condition of the army supplies but caused it to be shown 
more openly. The army was placed upon short allowance, and marched 
toward the Indian towns, which were the object of attack. ^ 

A flag of truce was dispatched to the Indians, with the offer of peace or 
war. Such an offer is so inconsistent with the usages of Indian warfare, in 
which surprise is so essential a feature, that it throws some discredit on the 
relation. Whatever may have been the fact, this measure upon the part 
of the general, in addition to the want of provisions, is represented to have 
converted previous restlessness into positive disaffection, fomented by some 
officers of rank, who were displeased with the general. This state of things 
eventuated in three hundred men deserting in a body, when but two days' 
march from the Indian villages. The evil spirit of discontent had got pos- 
session of the troops, and they obstinately returned home, without having 
seen an enemy or struck a blow. Still, there was a residue left greater than 
many a gallant band that had penetrated in earlier times into the very heart 
of the Indian country, spreading dismay and destruction before it. But 
something was wanting upon this expedition more essential than numbers, 
without which the largest numbers only increase the spoil of an enemy; it 
was a manly and patriotic subordination to orders, and an honorable confi- 
dence of the men in their officers, and of officers in their commander. Never 
had General Clark led so unfortunate a party. Hitherto, victory seemed to 
have hung with delight upon his banner. At the same time, mournful as 
the truth is, and reluctantly as the record is wrung from the author. General 
Clark was no longer the same man as the conqueror of Kaskaskia and the 
captor of Vincennes. The mind of Clark was wounded by the neglect of 
the government of Virginia to settle his accounts for his great expeditions, 
which had stretched the republic to the Mississippi. Private suits had been 
brought against him for public supplies, which ultimately swept away his 
private fortune; and with this injustice, the spirits of the hero fell, and the 
general never recovered those energies which had stamped him in the noblest 
mold of a hero. At the same time, the habit of intemperance contributed 
its mischievous effects. Several officers are accused of having fomented 
insubordination, which terminated the expedition so dishonorably. 

A more fortunate issue attended the expedition of Colonel Logan, who 
had been detached by General Clark from his camp at Silver Creek, oppo- 
site to Louisville, to return to Kentucky, and raise, as expeditiously as pos- 
sible, another party to go against the Shawanees, whose attention, it was 

I Butler, p. 152 ; Memoirs of Harrison, p. 82, note 2. 



11 



DEATH OF CAPTAIN IRVINE. 269 

supposed, would be engaged by the Wabash expedition. Logan repaired 
home, and soon returned with a competent number of mounted riflemen. 
On this rapid expedition, several towns of the Shawanees were burned, some 
twenty warriors killed, and a number of women and children brought away 
prisoners. This, as usual, consoled the public mind in some degree for the 
misfortunes of General Clark. 

Another incident of the times, romantic and tragic, of this expedition, 
illustrates how much of personal adventure made up the unwritten history 
of the day. Captain Christopher Irvine, of Madison county, joined Logan 
with a battalion of mounted riflemen, in this campaign. He was a man of 
fine intellect and high character, and of intrepid daring. Li a skirmish, an 
Indian was wounded, who proved a brave and resolute fellow. He attempted 
to escape, and Captain Irvine, with a squad of men, followed, trailing him 
through the brush and grass by his blood. The foremost pursuer came in 
range, when the Indian shot him dead, and resumed his retreat. Another 
of Irvine's men in the pursuit getting in the advance, and coming in sight, 
was also fired upon by the wounded savage, and killed. At this. Captain 
Irvine became much excited, and determined to lead the pursuit, against 
the remonstrance of friends. The delay gave the Indian a chance to get 
some distance off, but the pursuers soon gained on him. Captain Irvine, 
in the lead of his men, imprudently ventured in range, when the Indian 
fired and gave him a mortal wound. One of his men rushed up to the place 
of concealment, found the Indian again loading his gun, and at once dis- 
patched him. Irvine's death was much lamented. 

1 "A single incident attending this expedition deserves to be commemo- 
rated. Upon approaching a large village of the Shawanees, from which, 
as usual, most of the inhabitants had fled, an old chief named Moluntha 
came out to meet them, fantastically dressed in an old cocked hat set jauntily 
upon one side of his head, and a fine shawl thrown over his shoulders. He 
carried an enormous pipe in one hand, and a tobacco-pouch in the other, 
and strutted out with the air of an old French beau, to smoke the pipe 
of peace with his enemies, whom he found himself unable to meet in the 
field. 

"Nothing could be more striking than the fearless confidence with which 
he walked through the foremost ranks of the Kentuckians, evidently highly 
pleased with his own appearance, and enjoying the admiration which he 
doubted not that his cocked hat and splendid shawl inspired. Many of the 
Kentuckians were highly amused at the mixture of dandyism and gallantry 
which the poor old man exhibited, and shook hands with him very cordially. 
Unfortunately, however, he at length approached Major McGary, whose 
temper, never particularly sweet, was as much inflamed by the sight of an 
Indian as that of a wild bull by the waving of a red flag. It happened, 
unfortunately too, that Moluntha had been one of the chiefs who commanded 

I McClung, p. 127. 



270 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

at the Blue Licks, a disaster which McGary had not yet forgotten. He 
could not recall it now, with the equanimity of his comrades. 

"Instead of giving his hand as the others had done, McGary scowled 
upon the old man, and asked him if 'he recollected the Blue Licks?' Mo- 
luntha smiled, and merely repeated the word 'Blue Licks,' when McGary 
instantly drew his tomahawk and cleft him to the brain. The old man 
received the blow without flinching for a second, and fell dead at the feet 
of the destroyer. Great excitement instantly prevailed in the army. Some 
called it a ruthless murder, and others swore that he had done right — that 
an Indian was not to be regarded as a human being, but ought to be shot 
down as a wolf whenever and wherever he appeared. McGary himself 
raved like a madman at the reproach of his countrymen, and declared, with 
many bitter oaths, that he would not only kill every Indian whom he met, 
whether in peace or war, at church or market, but that he would equally as 
readily tomahawk the man who blamed him for the act." 

The Government of the parent Commonwealth had given the Kentuckians 
power and authority to assume their own defense, and they were grateful. 
Congress did nothing, as yet. 

According to the consenting act of the Virginia Legislature, delegates 
were elected in August, 1786, to the fourth convention, called by the act to 
sit at Danville, in September. So exhaustive were the drafts of Clark and 
Logan of men for their expeditions, at this time marching for the Indian 
towns beyond the Ohio, that a quorum of delegates-elect could not be had 
during the autumn, and adjournment from day to day was made until Jan- 
uary, 1787. The requisite number then attended, and proceeded to the 
order of business. A resolution was adopted setting forth that ;'/ -was expe- 
dient for, and the will of the good people of, the district, that the same should 
become a State separate from, and independent of, Virginia, upon the terms of 
the act. 

In the meeting of the minority of the convention in September, they had 
prepared a memorial to the Legislature of Virginia, advising that body of 
the circumstances which prevented the meeting of the convention, and pro- 
posing an alteration of some of the terms of the act, which had given dis- 
content to some of their constituents, and recommending an extension of 
the time to obtain the consent of Congress. 

This action seems to have been ignored or overlooked on the final assem- 
blage of the majority. The Legislature had taken action on the memorial, 
and passed a second act annulling the first : 

1 "At this important and eventful crisis, the second act, requiring another 
convention, was received by the president in a letter from a member of the 
Legislature. 

"It is not easy to describe the discomfiture and chagrin attending this 
communication. 

I Alarshall, Vol. I., p. 254. 



MARSHALL S LETTER. 27 I 

"Such, however, was their sense of moral and legal obligation that they 
immediately desisted, and soon after returned peaceably, if not contentedly, 
home to contemplate consequences. 

"Mr. Marshall, to whom the memorial of the committee had been trans- 
mitted, and who attended to it before the Legislature, by letter stated the 
reasons which influenced the General Assembly in passing the new law 
■which in substance were : 

"First — That the original law, requiring a decision on the subject of sep- 
aration in time, if adopted, for Congress to determine on the admission of 
Kentucky into the Union before the ist day of June, 1787, could not, in 
consequence of delay, be executed. 

"Second — That the twelve months allowed to the convention for other 
purposes might, in the divided state of public opinion, involve difficulties, 
especially as there did not appear to be in the minority a disposition to sub- 
mit to the will of the majority. 

"Third — That the proceedings of the convention would be subject to 
objections in consequence of defects in the law. 

"The preamble assigns as reasons for the act the failure of the conven- 
tion to meet, and the impracticability of executing the law for want of time. 
It further expressed a continued disposition in the Legislature to assent to 
the proposed separation, 

"It enacts that, on the August courts of the year 1787, the free male 
inhabitants of the district, in their respective counties, should elect five 
members for each county, to compose a convention, to be held at Danville 
on the third Monday in the ensuing September. 

"The 4th of July, 1787, was fixed as the limit within which Congress was 
to express her assent to the admission of the proposed State into the con- 
federation. 

"The material change effected by the incidents now detailed was to post- 
pone the separation for one year. By the act first passed, the separation 
could not take place before the ist day of September, 1787; by the second 
act, it was not to take place prior to the ist of January, 1789." 

The hope of realization having thus been withered in the ill-wind of this 
starding intelligence, it would seem that the extreme of patient toleration 
had been reached. The autonomy of the nascent Commonwealth must be 
postponed two years; and, possibly, postponed again, for the Government 
of the Union was in the travail of transition from the old to the new, and it 
was natural that the expiring Continental Congress would prefer that the 
admission of Kentucky should follow rather than precede the ratification 
of the new Constitution, in view of the well-known discontent of her people. 
True, Congress had made repeated treaties with the Indians, until every 
tribe of hostiles were included in the several compacts. But the bonds of 
these stipulations were as ropes of sand, as far as restraint on the savages 
was concerned. They were only made to be broken often, and with insolence 



272 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and impunity, while the authorities of the United States did absolutely 
nothing to protect the whites or chastise the guilty savages. 

The British still held the military posts in the North-west, excepting those 
captured by Clark, though the stipulation for their delivery to the Americans 
was made over five years before. The execution of this provision of the 
treaty was of more immediate importance to Kentucky than any other. The 
truth is that at this lime, and for two or three years after the ratification of 
the Constitution of the United States, the General Government was looked 
upon as a feeble and doubtful experiment for any permanent or durable 
purpose. The instinct of common danger and of common defense had ce- 
mented the colonies into confederated being and action, as a war measure. 
Now, that the purposes of the confederation had been accomplished, and 
the cohesive force of necessity had ceased, there sprang up the gravest dif- 
ferences and discussions as to the relative degrees of sovereignty and power 
that should remain to the Union and to the States that composed it. 

So jealous were the States of concessions of sovereignty to the Federal 
Government that it was seriously anticipated by very many that the experi- 
ment would be a failure. Monarchy and republicanism were before the 
tribunal of political inquisition, and the verdict of American statesmanship 
in favor of the latter was an arraignment of monarchy and kingcraft that 
challenged the virtues and utilities of the powerful governments of Europe. 
The fabric of the Federal Constitution was a bold and daring adventure, 
and the more so as it was a departure from the canonized political prece- 
dents of past history. The experiment was an untried and novel one, and 
seemed to have been born into an entity of life under an inspiration of 
statesmanship to its authors. On its success were suspended the issues 
and destinies of nations of peoples, of the rule of empires and continents, 
and of regenerated life to the future of mankind. It was the pivotal period 
of centuries, of change from the old political dispensation to the new. 

In the hands of its human architects, the work seemed to the wisdom of 
this world to be empiric, feeble, and uncertain; but there was, above all, a 
Power diviner than that of man whose unseen and unreckoned skill had 
wrought out this problem of the age from the conspiring incidents of cen- 
turies, and whose edict had been registered that it should not now fail of 
its consummation. 

The founders and promoters of the republic stood by the manger of 
Liberty, and nursed and watched, with the intense sympathies of paternity, 
the new-born infant, plaintive and pitiable in his swaddling-clothes; while 
the diviner Power disposed all, and directed that from this humble origin 
should come, for its regeneration, the light and hope of the political world. 
The friends were solicitous and hopeful, the indifferent were doubtful and 
suspicious, while the more powerful and numerous enemies to personal gov- 
ernment were incredulous and invidious. In this crisis, how natural that 
the absorbing questions of life to the Federal Union should obscure the 



I 



KENTUCKY S TRIAL. 273 

questions of life to the State in its embryotic struggle. Kentucky could 
barely hope for the attention due her imperative needs, dependent on col- 
leagues so remote. 

But the people of the great West, both tne whites and the reds, saw only 
weakness, indifference, and neglect at the Federal capital, in the retention of 
the forts by the British, the impunity with which border hostilities were car- 
ried on, and the timidity of action in measures of military defense against 
the Indians. Some of the State governments, even, were stronger in mili- 
tary resources and action than the general ; while the construction and ex- 
tent of the powers enumerated in the Federal Constitution were debated by 
the doubtl'ul. 

So resentful was the feeling in the West over these hurtful neglects and 
wrongs, that when the vote of Virginia was cast for or against the ratifica- 
tion of the new constitution, the delegates from Kentucky voted eleven 
against, to three for. Her people, unprepared to appreciate the difficulties 
of the situation, or to longer construe with patience and charity the delays 
of relief, when they had been so accustomed to vigorous and prompt action, 
had come to despise the inefiiciency of the central Government ; and espe- 
cially were they chafed under that condition of the Virginia law that required 
them to apply for and gain the consent of Congress, before they could erect 
for themselves the desired autonomy. 

At this most opportune hour the tempter came that tried the loyalty of 
Kentucky, tantalized as she had been by a labyrinth of assembly and legis- 
lative proceedings, the fair fruitage and promises of which had so often 
turned to ashes on her lips. In the inception of this natural ebullition of 
1; anger and impatience. General Wilkinson, of Fayette county, a gentleman 
of address and adroitness in politics, and well fitted for leadership, was 
. elected a delegate to the Danville convention. Of a bold and independent 
spirit, he had already expressed himself as favorable to cutting this gordian 
"■ knot of difficulty by an immediate separation of the Kentucky settlements 
' from Virginia, and the formation of an independent government, with such 
i ] a future destiny as circumstances might determine. Wilkinson had been 
1 an active soldier from Philadelphia in the Revolutionary war, was engaged 
'■' in commercial enterprises of an extensive character, and had acquired an 
influence in the public affairs of Kentucky, perhaps as great as that of any 
other citizen. In the temper of the people of the district, it is not strange 
I that there were associated with him many of the eminent and influential men 
|L of Kentucky, and that these had a numerous and formidable following. 

Shortly after the convention adjourned at Danville, in January, 1787, an 
association of men at Pittsburgh, styling themselves "A Committee of Cor- 
respondence for Western Pennsylvania," forwarded a communication to the 
people of Kentucky, as follows : 

" That John Jay, the American Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had made 
a proposition to Don Gardoqui, the Spanish Minister to the United States, 



274 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

to cede the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain for twenty-five or thirty 
years, in consideration of some commercial advantages to be granted to 
the United States ; but such as the Western country could derive no profit 
from." 

^ In response to this communication, the following circular letter was 
sent out to the people of the district : 

"Kentucky, Danville, March 29, 1787. — A respectable number of 
the inhabitants of the district having met at this place, being greatly alarmed 
at the late proceedings of Congress, in proposing to cede to the Spanish 
court the navigation of the Mississippi river for twenty-five or thirty years, 
have directed us to address the inhabitants on the western waters, and in- 
form them of the measures which it is proper for this district to adopt. 

''The inhabitants of the several counties in this district will be request- 
ed to elect five members in each county, to meet in Danville on the first 
Monday of May, to take up the consideration of this project of Congress ; 
to prepare a spirited, but decent, remonstrance against the cession ; to ap- 
point a committee of correspondence, and to communicate with one already 
established on the Monongahela, or any other that may be constituted ; to 
appoint delegates to meet representatives from the several districts on the 
western waters, in convention, should a convention be deemed necessary; 
and to adopt such other measures as shall be most conducive to our happi- 
ness. As we conceive that all the inhabitants residing on the western waters 
are equally affected by this partial conduct of Congress, we doubt not but 
they will readily approve of our conduct, and cheerfully adopt a similar 
system, to prevent a measure which tends to almost a total destruction of 
the western country. This is a subject which requires no comment ; the 
injustice of the measure is glaring ; and as the inhabitants of this district 
wish to unite their efforts, to oppose the cession of the navigation of the 
Mississippi, with those of their brethren residing on the western waters, we 
hope to see such an exertion made upon this important occasion, as may 
convince Congress that the inhabitants of the western country are united 
in the opposition, and consider themselves entitled to all the privileges of 
freemen and those blessings procured by the Revolution, and will not tamely 
submit to an act of oppression which would tend to a deprivation of our 
just rights and privileges. Your obedient servants, 

" George Mutbr, 
" Harry Innes, 
"John Brown, 
" Benjamin Sebastian. 
"One, at least, of these missiles being dispatched to each county in the 
district, it had the effect to increase the jealousy, and even animosity, against 
Congress, which some had already conceived against that body, on account 
of its conduct in relation to the Indians." 

I Marshall, Vol. L, p. 259. 



I 



JOHN JAY S TREATY. 275 

There was nothing objectionable in the temper or language of this letter 
of address, considering the impressions then very reasonably prevailing in 
the West, as to the intentions of Congress. The most unlettered backwoods- 
man could not be blinded to the vital importance of the interests which, as 
they supposed, were about to be bartered away for advantages to be reaped 
only by their Eastern brethren. Although the ferment was for a time vio- 
lent, only regular and constitutional remedies were proposed by the circu- 
lar or adopted by the citizens. 

The delegates were elected as proposed, but even before they assembled, 
a clearer and more intelligible view of the facts was had, and the conven- 
tion, after a brief session, and after debating and rejecting various proposi- 
tions, which looked toward increasing and prolonging the excitement of the 
people upon this agitating subject, quietly adjourned, without taking any 
action whatever upon the matter. The true state of facts were about as 
follows : 

^"As early as the 28th of June, 1785, the arrival of Don Gardoqui had 
"been announced to Congress, with plenipotentiary powers to treat on behalf 
of his majesty with any person or persons vested with equal powers by the 
United States on the subjects in controversy. 

"The Hon. John Jay, then being the secretary of the United States for 
' foreign affairs, received from Congress a similar commission, and a nego- 
■ tiation was opened between these ministers in New York. The caution of 
' Congress had inserted in the commission of Mr. Jay these ultimata : ' That 
he enter into no treaty, compact, or convention whatever with the said rep- 
resentative of Spain which did not stipulate the right of the United States 
' to the navigation of the Mississippi and the boundaries as established by 
" their treaty with Great Britain.' 

* "More than half a year had elapsed before Congress had any com- 

" munication as to the progress of the negotiation. Difficulties were at length 

^' announced by the American minister on the subjects of treaty. He was 

! called before Congress and explained by reference to the navigation of the 

river, which was claimed exclusively and justly by Spain, within her ter- 

\ ritories; and further, by presenting to view the project of a commercial 

\ treaty containing, as he contended, advantageous stipulations in favor of 

the United States, in consideration of which it was proposed that they 

' should forbear the use of the navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five 

; or thirty years.' He urged the adoption of this project as a beneficial one 

I for the United States ; said that a stipulation to forbear the use on the part 

of the United States, accepted by Spain, was an admission on her part of 

' the right; that, in fact, the United States were in no condition to take the 

river or force the use of it, and, therefore, gave nothing for the benefit they 

would derive from the proposed treaty, not otherwise to be effected, for the 

use of the nation. 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 265. 



276 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

" Under this view of the subject, the seven most eastwardly of the 
States voted to rescind the ultimata in the secretary's instructions, and it 
was, of course, so entered on the journal, the other States dissenting. It,, 
however, required the concurrence of nine States to give an instruction;, 
therefore, none was given. The case had been debated; the strength of the 
party for the treaty had been tried and found wanting. The project had 
failed, most happily for the Union." 

Pending this action of Congress, the recommendation of Jay had been 
indignantly denounced and resisted by the other States south of New York,, 
and Virginia, by unanimous vote of her Legislature, had instructed her del- 
egates in Congress never to accede to any such proposition, in which she 
was warmly seconded by the non-concurring States. It is an incident of 
interesting conjecture as to what would have been the consequence if the 
requisite majority of nine States, instead of the seven only, had voted to adopt 
the sectional suggestion of the American commissioner. It would certainly 
have produced a discordant jar that would have called for radical conces- 
sion and compromise, if it had not divided the Union by the Alleghany 
ridge. As it was, there was left upon the public mind of the West a jeal- 
ousy of the intentions of the North-eastern States, which might possibly be 
fanned into a flame, and of which political aspirants and bold leaders might 
avail themselves as it suited their purposes. The name of John Jay, after 
the splendid services he had rendered the whole country in the negotiations 
at Madrid and Paris, became peculiarly odious for the selfish attempt to 
barter away a great and vital national interest for petty commercial gains- 
to a section of the country. 

The party, ready for the alternative of immediate separation and an in- 
dependent commonwealth, under the principal lead of General Wilkinson, 
and sustained by many of the purest and most patriotic public men, and 
sympathized with by a very large proportion of the people, had been alive 
and vigilant. There was no sentiment for a political association with any 
foreign country, and it may be truthfully said that the preference to enter 
the Union as a co-equal State was well-nigh universal; but the difficulties^ 
in the way, the indecisive postponements, the pressure of demand for inde- 
pendent authority to use the forces of the district to repel Indian incursions 
and chastise the savages, the neglect of the Government which held all 
authority without using it, conspired to increase the sentiment for separa- 
tion, as the least in a choice of evils. 

1" In the meantime, an occurrence now so frequent as scarcely to attract 
notice, but then unprecedented in the district, was announced, and pro- 
duced a general sensation of applause. 

"It was the publication of The Kentucky Gazette as a weekly news- 
paper by John Bradford, an ingenious and enterprising citizen of Lexington. 
It first appeared on the 28th of August, on a demi-sheet; the ist of Septem- 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 274. 



THE DANVILLE CONVENTION ASSEMBLES. 277 

ber it assumed the medium size, which it retained for a time and afterward 
lost in one of greater dimensions. 

"Immediately, the Gazette became the vehicle of discussion to the 
parties for and against the separation. The publications on the subject, still 
worthy of perusal, evince the possession of considerable political knowl- 
edge, as well as literary acquirement, on both sides of the question. 

"On the 17th of September, the convention assembled at Danville, 
.agreeably to the provisions of the act of separation, almost without an ab- 
sent member. After the usual organization, and with but little debate, it 
was decided, Avithout a dissenting voice, to be ' expedient for the good 
people of the district that it should be separated from the rest of the State 
upon the tenns and conditions prescribed by laiv. ' 

"The convention then proceeded to address Congress in a very respect- 
ful and loyal style for the admission of the new State into the Federal 
Union, by the name of Kentucky, and fixed on the last day of December, 
1788, for the termination of the authority of Virginia and the commence- 
ment of the new republic. 

"And finally, ' that in the month of April next, on the respective days of 
the county courts within the said district, and at the places of holding 
courts therein, respectively, representatives to continue in appointment until 
the 31st of December, 1788, to compose the said convention, shall be 
elected within the said district by the free male inhabitants of each county, 
in the like manner as the delegates to the General Assembly have been 
elected, in the proportions following: In the county of Jefferson, five rep- 
resentatives,' and so on, naming the several counties, and giving five to 
each. 

"Thus, the convention, having manifested the utmost propriety of 
temper and conduct, and completed the business for which it had been 
elected and assembled, peaceably adjourned and returned to their constitu- 
ents, in the sanguine hope that labors so long pursued and so faithfully 
performed would be crowned in due season with their well-merited success." 

iln June, 1787, General Wilkinson descended to New Orleans with a 
small cargo of tobacco and other articles, to try his enterprise and address 
at the seat of the Spanish Government in Louisiana. While at New Orleans, 
he states that he made an arrangement with General Miro for the introduc- 
tion of several thousand families on the east side of the Mississippi river, 
then known as Florida, or for a colony to be laid out on the Arkansas and 
White rivers. He also obtained the privilege of furnishing an annual supply 
of tobacco for the Mexican market, all of which promised immense fort- 
unes to him and his friends. For the authenticity of these statements, he 
exhibited the permits of General Miro, commandante. The large sums in 
coin received by Wilkinson at Frankfort and Louisville from the lower Mis- 
sissippi, and distributed to farmers and merchants from various parts of the 

I Butler, p. 160; Wilkinson's Memoirs. 



278 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

interior of the district for tobacco, show that he was largely engaged in 
this trade, in which he had an indubitable right to engage. 

In February, 1788, he returned from this commercial expedition to New 
Orleans. Soon the intense partisan opposition to him led to reports that he 
had formed a contract with the Spanish governor which enabled him to ship 
tobacco and deposit it in the king's stores, at ten dollars per hundred ; that 
he had become a Spanish subject, and had taken the oath of allegiance to 
the monarchy. The matter of contract he did not substantially deny ; that 
of becoming a Spanish subject was too absurd to be believed of so shrewd a 
man. He continued to buy and ship tobacco, and to openly speak of his 
exclusive privilege to deposit in the king's stores. He freely dilated on the 
importance to Kentucky of the free navigation of the Mississippi and of 
commercial connection with Spain. These were indispensable to the ma- 
terial life and prosperity of the germinal State, so long kept suffering in the 
pains of parturition, for her people had no other market for their products, 
barred as they were from the Atlantic coast by distance and impassable 
mountains. 

The convention of September had requested the delegates from the dis- 
trict in the Legislature of Virginia to ask for a representative in Congress, 
having now the requisite population, to serve for the ensuing year. Under 
this recommendation, Hon. John Brown, of Danville, was chosen — the first 
and only member from Kentucky of the old Congress. The next sequence 
of action in these convention proceedings we find in no history, treated with 
that just and dispassionate temper which carries conviction with narration 
except by Butler, from whose reviews we briefly borrow : 

i"On the 29th of July, in this year, the sixth convention met at Dan- 
ville .to form a constitution of government for the district, preparatory to 
its separation from Virginia. While this body was assembled, information 
was received that Congress had determined to refer the question of admit- 
ting Kentucky into the Union to the new government. This was, indeed, 
a cruel blow to the excited hopes of independent government so repeatedly 
voted by Kentucky, and as often assented to by Virginia. It is not a matter 
of wonder that there was now observable the most deep-felt vexation, a 
share of resentment bordering on disaffection, and strong symptoms of as- 
suming independent government. The navigation of the Mississippi and the 
trade to New Orleans, now just tested for the first time, were strenuously 
pressed into the argument in favor of completing the constitution and or- 
ganizing government without delay. It was even proposed to submit the 
state of the district and the course to be pursued to each militia company. 
This proposition was, by a large majority, most judiciously rejected. This 
body came, after protracted debate, to the following recommendation : 
That the people of the district should elect another assembly, to meet in 
the following November, and to continue in office until the ist of January, 

I Butler, p. 167. 



I 



DISUNION PROPOSED. 



279 



1790; 'that they delegate to their said representatives full powers to take 
such measures for obtaining admission of the district as a separate and in- 
dependent member of the United States of America, and the navigation of 
the Mississippi, as may appear most conducive to those purposes; and also 
to form a constitution of government for the district, and organize the same 
when they judge it necessary, or to do and accomplish whatsoever, on a consid- 
eration of the state of the district, may, in their opinion, promote its interests.^ 

" From the breadth and plenipotentiary character of this commission, 
like that of a Roman dictator, the temper of the district may be inferred; nor 
can there, in the whole history of American government, be found a career of 
such multiplied disappointments and abortive assemblies as in the labors 
of Kentucky to be admitted into the Union. All parties appear to have 
been well disposed; still, as if under the influence of some enchantment, 
consent was given but to be repealed; act was passed after act, and assem- 
bly met after assembly, only to give birth to a successor as remote as ever 
from obtaining what had been the favorite object of the people for years. 
Had a domestic government been organized after the repeated and har- 
monious co-operation of the great contracting parties, it is not to be supposed 
that it would have been so technically misconstrued as to have been viewed 
as treasonable to Virginia or hostile to the Union, owing to repeated and 
unavoidable accidents. The magnanimous temper of Virginia would have 
cured everything. Should any such unjust imputation have been placed 
upon the proceedings of Kentucky, it must soon have been removed by 
their fidelity, had it have been, as it is believed it was, immovably fast to 
the confederacy of their countrymen. Vermont co?itinued without the pale 
of the Union during the whole Revolutionary war and until March, lygi, yet 
no indictment was brought against her for treason. At this distance of time, 
the protracted delays and repeated public disappointments on this question 
seem truly inexplicable. It is not known to what else to compare our long 
succession of fruitless conventions than to the card edifices of children, 
which are no sooner erected than at a breath they are demolished. The 
assertion may be safely ventured that no sober political critic of the present 
day can believe that any community in these States would now be so trifled 
with and tantalized, as the people of this district were for eight years in ob- 
taining a separate municipal existence. Some auxiliary resolutions for 
directing the election of the seventh convention closed the labors of this 
addition to the numerous and ineffectual assemblies of Kentucky. So ex- 
cited had public feeling in Kentucky become in consequence of this pro- 
voking course of things that disunion seems to have been at least proposed, 
as its 'idea was formally combated in the public prints of the time, while 
nothing more open or formal than the acts of the convention is recollected 
in its favor.' 

"As it has before been remarked, the separation of Kentucky from Vir- 
ginia was an agreed case between the high parties; the difficulty was one 



2So HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of form and accident only. In such a state of things, it would have been 
cruel mockery and iniquity in Virginia to have so far misinterpreted a sep- 
aration of Kentucky, which had been the subject of repeated and mutual 
agreements, as to have considered it treasonable. The jealousy of the coun- 
try could not, however, have been too keenly excited against any attempt at 
foreign independence ; it is never admitted into the creed of an enlightened 
patriot until the last extremity of domestic misfortune, and even then to be 
most sleeplessly watched." 

It is but due that we should give here in connection the action of Con- 
gress, setting forth the reasons for postponement again: 

1 "Hon. John Brown, as early as February, had introduced the address 
of the district conventioh, requesting the assent of Congress to its admission 
as a new State into the Union. On the morning of the 3d of July — the 4th 
of the month being the limit prescribed for obtaining the assent of admis- 
sion on the part of Congress — some weeks after the Virginia convention had 
been in sesssion, and some days after it had. in fact, ratified the Federal 
Constitution, the motion of Mr. Brown was taken up for the last time, and 
ultimately postponed for the reasons subjoined : 

'• -Whereas. Application has been lately made to Congress by the Legis- 
lature of Virginia and the district of Kentucky for the admission of the said 
district into the Federal Union, as a separate member thereof, on the terms 
contained in the acts of the said Legislature, and in the resolutions of the 
said district relative to the premises. And whereas. Congress, having fully 
considered the subject, did, on the 3d day of June last, resolve that it is 
expedient that the said district be erected into a sovereign and independent 
State and a separate member of the Federal Union, and appointed a com- 
mittee to report an act accordingly, which committee, on the 2d instant, was 
discharged, it appearing that nine States had adopted the Constitution of the 
United States, lately submitted to conventions of the people. And whereas, 
a new confederacy is formed among the ratifying States, and there is reason 
to believe that the State of Virginia, including the said district, did, on the 
26th day of June last, become a member of the said confederacy. And 
whereas, an act of Congress in the present state of the government of the 
country, severing a part of said State from the other pan thereof, and ad- 
mitting it into the confederacy, formed by the articles of confederation and 
perpetual union, as an independent member thereof, may be attended with 
many inconveniences, while it can have no effect to make the said district 
a separate member of the Federal Union formed by the adoption of the said 
Constitution, and, therefore, it must be manifestly improper for Congress, 
assembled under the said anicles of confederation, to adopt any other 
measures relative to the premises than those which express their sense that 
the said district, as a separate State, be admitted in the L'nion as soon as 
circumstances shall permit proper measures to be adopted for that purpose."' 

I Marshall, VoL I., p. ;^3,]. 



REPRESENTATIVE BROVVN's LETTER. 281 

The impressions made upon the mind of Representative Brown, of Ken-' 
tucky, by the sentiment and action of Congress, the selfish and sectional 
spirit of the North-eastern States, and the apparent imbecility of the central 
Government, if we may accord to him the sincerity of motive of which all 
the facts and circumstances give reasonable assurance, were most prejudicial 
to the hope for a satisfactory and early consummation of the wishes of his 
constituents. 

In this frame of mind, his acquaintance was cultivated by the Spanish 
minister, Don Gardofjui, who availed himself of the most opportune moment 
to press ujjon his incredulous and unhopeful mind, the alternative solution 
of independent existence of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, with the 
tempting offer of the Spanish Government, of exclusive navigation of the 
Mississippi and trade with Spain and her colonies. The treatment of Ken- 
tucky had raised the question of policy, and eliminated the quality of treason. 
From the very partisan notes of Marshall, we continue the narrative, with 
modified language : 

1 " To President McDowell, of the Kentucky convention of July, Brown 
wrote soon after the action of Congress, to which allusion has been made, 
giving an account of his labors and disappointments, to which he added his 
mvn reasons for the failure ! In this letter was inclosed a detached scrip, in 
these words : 

"'In a conversation I had with Mr. Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, 
relative to the navigation of the Mississippi, he stated that, if the people of 
Kentucky would erect themselves into an independent State, and appoint a proper 
person to fiegotiate with him, he had authority for that purpose, and would 
•enter into an arrangement with them for the exportation of their produce to 
New Orleans, on terms of mutual advantage.' 

"This is not the only letter written by Mr. Brown, about the same time, 
to Kentucky. He recollected that Judge Muter had joined with him in 
March, 1787, in sending forth the circular address to the courts on the sub- 
ject of the Mississippi, and favored him with one of his epistles containing 
an introduction of his new acquaintance, Don Gardoqui. Although Muter 
could not be called a great man, yet he disliked the intrigues of political 
partisans, and was alarmed, on the perusal of Mr. Brown's letter, to find 
him engaged with a foreign minister, which directly implicated the peace of 
Kentucky and the preservation of the Union. Under the circumstances, 
it was impossible for him to not to combine the views disclosed by Mr. 
Brown with those manifested by General Wilkinson in the late convention. 
This coincidence of objects naturally suggested a concert of means to effect 
them, and pointed out the danger as being imminent. This led him to 
Colonel Marshall, and was his inducement for showing the letter with which 
he had been honored by Mr. Brown, ^xhe community was seriously af- 
fected with anti-federalism and the mania of national dissolution, when its 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 302. 2 Marshall, Vol. 1., p. 303. 



252 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

representatives in convention could pass and send out to it the propositions 
which have been detailed, as the basis of authority for another convention 
to throw Kentucky out of the Union, if it pleased, and to enter into arrange- 
ments with Spain, who had refused the United States a treaty for the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi, without exciting a much more general disappro- 
bation than was apparent. And when to this reflection ig added the fact 
that the greater number of the leaders in the former convention were again 
elected, and that Mr. Brown, having returned to the district, was himself 
elected a member to the same, there seems but little reason to doubt that a 
large proportion of these who gave tone to public opinion were of the party 
of Wilkinson and Brown, from the July to the November convention of this 
year. 

"The letter to Judge Muter, to which allusion has been made, is as fol- 
lows : 

" 'New York, July lo, 1788 — Dear Sir: An answer to your favor of 
the 1 6th of March was, together with several other letters, put into the hands 
of one of General Harmar's officers, who set out in May last for the Ohio, 
and who promised to forward them to the district ; but I fear that they have 
miscarried, as I was a few days ago informed that his orders had been coun- 
termanded, and that he had been sent to the garrison at West Point. In- 
deed, I have found it almost impracticable to transmit a letter to Kentucky, 
as there is scarce any communication between this place and that country. 
A post is now established from this place to Fort Pitt, to set out once in two 
weeks, after the 20th instant ; this will render the communication easy and 
certain. Before this reaches you, I expect you will have heard the deter- 
mination of Congress relative to the separation of Kentucky, as a copy of 
the proceedings has been forwarded to the district by the Secretary of Con- 
gress, a few days ago. It was not in my power to obtain a decision earlier 
than the 3d instant. Great part of the winter and spring, there was not a 
representation of the States sufficient to proceed to this business, and, after 
it was referred to a grand committee, they could not be prevailed upon to 
report, a majority of them being opposed to the measure. The Eastern States 
would not, nor do I think they ever will, assent to the admission of the dis- 
trict into the Union, as an independent State, unless Vermont or the pro- 
vince of Maine is brought forward at the same time. The change which 
has taken place in the general government is made the ostensible objection 
to the measure ; but the jealousy of the growing importance of the Western coun- 
try, and an unwillingness to add a vote to the southern interest, are the real 
f" causes of opposition, and I am inclined to believe that they will exist to a 

certain degree, even under the new government to which the application is 
referred by Congress. The question which the district will now have to 
determine upon will be : Whether or not it will be more expedient to con- 
tinue the connection with the State of Virginia, or to declare their independ- 
ence and proceed to frame a constitution of government ? 'Tis generally 



TERMS OF THE SPANISH MINISTER. 283 

expected that the latter will be the determination, as you have proceeded 
too far to think of relinquishing the measure, and the interest of the district 
will render it altogether inexpedient to continue in your present situation 
until an application for admission into the Union can be made in a consti- 
tutional mode, to the new Government. 

" 'This step will, in my opinion, tend to preserve unanimity, and will en- 
able you to adopt with effect such measures as may be necessary to promote 
the interest of the district. In private conferences which I have had with 
Mr. Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, at this place, I have been assured by 
him in the most explicit terms, that if Kentucky will declare her independ- 
ence, and empower some proper person to negotiate with him, that he has 
authority, and will engage, to open the navigation of the Mississippi, for the 
exportation of their produce, on terms of mutual advantage. But that this 
privilege never can be extended to them while part of the United States, by 
reason of commercial treaties existing between that court and other powers 
of Europe. As there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of this declaration, 
I have thought proper to communicate it to a few confidential friends in the 
district, with his permission, not doubting but that they will make a prudent 
use of the information — which is in part confirmed by dispatches yesterday 
received by Congress, from Mr. Carmichal, our minister at that court, the 
contents of which I am not at liberty to disclose. 

" ' Congress is now engaged in framing an ordinance for putting the new 
Government into motion ; it is not yet complete, but as it now stands the 
elections are to be made in December, and the new Congress to meet in 
February, but it may undergo alterations. Ten States have ratified — this 
State (New York) is now in session ; what the result of their deliberations 
will be, is as yet doubtful ; two-thirds of the members are opposed, but 'tis 
probable they may be influenced by motives of expediency. North Caro- 
lina will adopt; time alone can determine how far the new Government 
will answer the expectations of its friends ; my hopes are sanguine, the 
change was necessary. 

" 'I fear, should not the present treaty at Muskingum prove successful, 
that we shall have an Indian war on all our borders. I do not expect that 
the present Congress will in that case be able to take any effectual measures 
for our defense. 

" 'There is not a dollar in the Federal treasury which can be appropriated 
to that purpose. I shall leave this place shortly, and expect to be at the 
September term. I have enjoyed my usual good state of health, and have 
spent my time here agreeably. 

" ' I am with great esteem your humble servant, J. Brown. 

" ' The Honorable George AluterJ 

1 "A letter bearing date the 15th of October, 1788, from the chief-justice 
of the district, to the editor of the Kentucky Gazette, will evince his im- 

I Marshall, Vol. I, p. 295. 



284 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

pressions of the actual and probable emergency. It is apparent that the 
conservative parties were much concerned. 

" He says : ' Forming a constitution of government and organizing the 
same, before the consent of the Legislature of Virginia for that purpose 
first obtained, will be directly contrary to the letter and spirit of the act of 
assembly, entitled "an act for punishing certain offenses; and vesting the 
governor with certain powers;" which declares that every person or persons 
who shall erect or establish government separate from, or independent of, 
the State of Virginia within the limits thereof, unless by act of the Legis- 
lature for that purpose first obtained, or shall exercise any ofifice under 
such usurped government, shall be guilty of high treason. 

" ' The third section of the fourth article of the Federal Constitution ex- 
pressly declares: " that no new State shall be formed or erected within the 
jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed out of the junction 
of two, or more, States without the consent of the Legislatures of the States 
concerned, as well as of the Congress." Therefore, the consent of Virginia 
to the separation must first be obtained agreeably to the above-cited section, 
to afford to Kentucky any prospect of being admitted a member of the Fed- 
eral Union. 

" ' In the tenth section of the first article of the Federal Constitution it is 
declared : " that no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confedera- 
tion." Of course, it must follow that no part of a State can enter into any 
treaty, alliance, or confederation. 

" ' The resolution of the late convention, if adopted by the people, might 
fairly be construed to give authority to the next, to treat with Spain to ob- 
tain the navigation of the Mississippi, if they should think such a measure 
conducive to their interest ; when it might plainly appear by the before- 
recited section, that any other application than to the assembly of Virginia, 
and to the Congress of the United States, must be contrary to the Federal 
Constitution. 

" ' It is therefore submitted to the consideration of the inhabitants of Fay- 
ette, whether it may not be necessary, in their instructions to their delegates, 
to direct them not to agree to the forming a constitution and form of gov- 
ernment and organizing the same, till the consent of the Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, for that purpose, is first obtained ; not to agree to make any applica- 
tion whatever to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi, other than to the 
Legislature of Virginia and the Congress of the United States ; to draw up 
and forward to the assembly of Virginia a memorial requesting them to 
alter their acts for the separation of this district from Virginia, that the same 
be brought before the Congress of the United States in the manner directed 
by the Federal Constitution, and to request them to authorize the conven- 
tion by law, to form a constitution of government and to organize the same; 
or direct a new convention to be chosen, to continue in office a reasonabjj 
time, and to be vested with those powers. 



MEETING OF THE SEVENTH CONVENTION. 2S5 

" ' To forward to the assembly of Virginia and the Congress of the United 

States a decent and manly memorial, requesting that such measures may be 

' pursued by Congress; or that Virginia will use her influence with Congress, 

' to take such measures as shall be most likely to procure for the people of 

the Western country the navigation of the Mississippi. 

" ' George Muter.' " 
During the year, Southern Indians committed some murders and pillages 
in Lincoln county, and were pursued and severely punished. The tribe 
' made complaint that the whites were the aggressors, and asked reparation 
at the hands of the State executive. This brought out an instruction to 
Judge Harry Innes to suppress these practices by public prosecution. By 
letter of July, 1787, this officer replied: "In my official capacity, I can not 
"do it; in a private capacity, the attempt would render me odious." In con- 
' elusion, he added: "The Indians have been very troublesome on our fron- 
'tier, and continue to molest us. I am decidedly of the opinion that this 
'Western country will, in a few years, act for itself and erect an independent 
government ; for, under the present system, we can not exert our strength; 
neither does Congress seem disposed to protect us, since those troops raised 
for the defense of the Western country are disbanded. I have dropped this 
hint to your excellency for matter of reflection." 
' Such was the temper and state of the political mind when the seventh 
^convention met at Danville, in November, 17S8. In October previous, there 
were elected as members of this body Messrs. Humphrey and Thomas Mar- 
■ shall, Muter, Crockett, Allen, and Edwards, who were leaders of the Country 
'party, as the wits of the day termed them; while to Messrs. Brown, Wilkin- 
I son, Sebastian, and Innes were conceded the iQadership of the Court party, 
''' similarly named. The distinct issue was upon the mode of separating from 
^Virginia. The first point of discussion was the submission of the resolu- 
tions passed by the preceding convention to a committee of the whole. The 
! Court party favored this reference in order, it seems, to give prominence to- 
the navigation of the Mississippi, with the formation of the State constitu- 
^ tion ; and to hasten the latter, if need be, without awaiting the formality 
of consent by Virginia. The proceeding may not have been very parlia- 
mentary, but, as of infinitely more consequence, it gave full and prominent 
"attitude to the question of the Mississippi navigation; and mainly through 
j the bold and sagacious mind and the tenacious spirit of Wilkinson. 

^ Marshall represents Wilkinson to have said, in the course of debate, in 
advocacy of the reference, that 
I "Spain had objections to granting the navigation in question to the 
r United States ; it was not to be presumed that Congress would obtain it for 
' Kentucky, or even the Western country only; her treaties must be general. 
" There was one way, and but one, that he knew of for obviating these diffi- 
culties ; and that was so fortified by constitutions and guarded by laws, that 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 318; Butler, p. 176. 



286 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

it was dangerous of access and hopeless of attainment, under present cir- 
cumstances. It was the certain course, which had been indicated in the 
former convention, which he would not now repeat, but which every gentle- 
man present would connect with a declaration of itidependetice — the formation 
of a constitution, and the organization of a new State, which might safely 
be left to find its way into the Union, on terms advantageous to its interests 
and prosperity. 

"He expatiated upon the prosperous circumstances of the country, its 
increasing population, its rich productions, and its imperious claims to the 
benefits of commerce through the Mississippi, its only outlet. 

"That the same difficulties did not exist on the part of Spain to concede 
to the people on the Western waters the right of navigating the river, which 
she had to a treaty with the United States, there were many reasons for sup- 
posing; that there was information of the first importance on that subject 
within the power of the convention, which he doubted not it would be equally 
agreeable for the members to have, and for the gentleman who possessed it 
to communicate." 

All eyes were now turned on Hon. John Brown, both a member of Con- 
gress and a delegate, to whom the allusions of the speaker referred, who 
arose and responded, "That he did not think himself at liberty to disclose 
what had passed in private conferences between the Spanish minister, Mr. 
Gardoqui, and himself; but this much in general he would venture to inform 
the convention, that, provided we are unanimous, everything we could wish 
for is within our reach. ^^ 

On this delivery of Mr. Brown, General Wilkinson arose, and, with the 
attention of the body, asked general consent to read an address on the sub- 
ject of the navigation of the Mississippi. This granted, the address, dilating 
on the following points, was directed to the "Intendant of Louisiana:" 

The author urged the natural right of the Western people to follow the 
current of rivers flowing through their country into the sea, the great com- 
mon and highway of nations. 

The extent of country, the richness of soil, the quantity and variety of 
productions suitable for foreign markets, for which there were no avenues 
of conveyance, should the Mississippi be closed to their export. 

The advantages which Spain would derive from allowing free use of the 
river to those on its various waters by increase of trade and revenue to her. 

That the population of Kentucky was rapidly increasing, and that each 
individual looked forward to the free navigation of the Mississippi with the 
greatest solicitude. 

The general abhorrence with which the people of the Western waters 
received the intelligence that Congress was about to cede to Spain the 
exclusive right of navigating this river for twenty-five years. 

That the Western people were being driven to the alternative of separ- 
ating themselves from the Union on that account, considering this naviga- 



KENTUCKY VIOLENTLY AGITATED. 287 

tion indispensable to their future growth and prosperity. These commercial 
advantages outweighed the political considerations presented in favor of a 
connection with the Federal Union. 

That should Spain be so blind to her true interest as to refuse the use 
of the river to the Western people, and thereby compel a resort to military 
means, Great Britain stood ready, with a sufficient force of armed allies, to 
co-operate with them in enforcing this great national right. 

That the whole Spanish possessions in America would be endangered by 

such a combined movement, should the British, who now hold the mouth 

of the St. Lawrence, also seize and command the mouth of the Mississippi. 

After this reading, the author received a vote of thanks from the con- 

u vention Avithout a dissenting voice, showing that his views could hardly 
have been as obnoxious at the time, as the Country party have been pleased 
to represent them in such notes and records as we have preserved at their 

, hands. 

i 

The motion to refer the resolutions of the last convention, of great lati- 
tude of discretion, to the committee of the whole was carried, thus showing 
that the Court party was the dominant power in the convention. On almost 
: every important committee Wilkinson was appointed, and, in every instance, 
,. seemed to have been a controlling spirit, 

i The leaders of the Country party became evidently uneasy at the drift 
' of proceedings, and determined on methods of counteraction by popular 
!■ petitions. Colonel Crockett left his seat on Saturday, proceeded to Lexing- 
ton, and at that place and vicinity obtained a remonstrance, signed by over 
L three hundred citizens, against a forced separation. These were also of 
J Wilkinson's constituency. On the 6th of the month, a resolution came up, 
, on the petition of citizens of Mercer and Madison, asking that the conven- 
tion pray Congress that the body adopt measures at once to obtain the 
. navigation of the Mississippi. The matter was referred to a special com- 
mittee. 

Messrs. Muter, Jouett, Allen, and Wilkinson were appointed a committee 
■; to draw up a respectful report to the Virginia Assembly for obtaining the 
. independence of Kentucky, agreeable to the late recommendation of Con- 
gress. 

General Wilkinson, in behalf of the previously-appointed committee, 
prepared and read the address: 
, ^•' 7<> the United States, in Congress Assembled: The people of Kentucky, 
„ represented in convention, as freemen, as citizens, and as part of the Amer- 
ican republic, beg leave, by this humble petition, to state their rights, and 
; to call for protection in the enjoyment of them. 

"When the peace had secured to America that sovereignty and independ- 
ence for which she had so nobly contended, we could not, like our Atlantic 
friends, retire to enjoy in ease the blessings of freedom, 

I Wilkinson's Memoirs. 



288 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

"Many of us had expended in the struggle for our country's rights that 
property which would have enabled us to possess a competency with our 
liberty. 

"On the Western waters, the Commonwealth of Virginia possessed a fer- 
tile but uninhabited wild. 

"In this wilderness we sought, after having procured liberty for our 
posterity, to provide for their support. Inured to hardships by a long war- 
fare, we ventured into the almost impenetrable forests; without bread or 
domestic animals, we depended on the casual supplies afforded by the 
chase; hunger was our familiar attendant, and even our unsavory meals 
were made upon the wet surface of the earth, with the cloud-deformed 
canopy for our covering. Though forced to pierce the thicket, it was not 
in safety we trod ; the wily savage thirsted for our blood, lurked in our 
paths, and seized the unsuspecting hunter. While we lamented the loss of 
a friend ; a brother, a father, a wife, a child became a victim to the barbarian 
tomahawk. Instead of consolation, a new and greater misfortune deadened 
the sense of former afflictions. From the Union we receive no support; 
but we impeach not their justice. Ineffectual treaties, often renewed and 
as often broken by the savage nations, served only to supply them with the 
means of our destruction. But no human cause could control that Provi- 
dence which destined this Western country to be the seat of a civilized and 
happy people. The period of its accomplishment was distant, but it ad- 
vanced with rapid and incredible strides. We derive strength from our 
misfortunes and numbers from our losses. The unparalleled fertility of our 
soil made grateful returns, far disproportioned to the slight labor which 
our safety would permit us to bestow. Our fields and herds afforded us not 
only sufficient support for ourselves, but also for the emigrants who an- 
nually double our numbers, and even a surplus still remains for exporta- 
tion. 

" This surplus would be far greater, did not a narrow policy shut up our 
navigation and discourage our industry. 

" In this situation, we call for your attention. We beg you to trace the 
Mississippi from the ocean, survey the innumerable rivers which water your 
Western territory and pay their-J;ribute to its greatness, examine the luxuri- 
ant soil which those rivers traverse. Then we ask, can the God of wisdom and 
nature have created that vast country in vain? Was it for nothing that He 
blessed it with a fertility almost incredible? Did He not provide those 
great streams which empty into the Mississippi, and by it communicate with 
the Atlantic, that other nations and climes might enjoy with us the blessings 
of our fruitful soil ? View the country, and you will answer for yourselves. 
But can the presumptuous madness of man imagine a policy inconsistent 
with the immense designs of the Deity? Americans can not. 

"As it is the natural right of the people of this country to navigate the 
Mississippi, so they have also the right derived from treaties and national 



M 



ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA. 289 

compacts. Shall we not avail ourselves of those natural and conventional 
rights, so vital to our future? 

" By the treaty of peace concluded in the year 1763 between the crowns 
of Great Britain, France, and Spain, the free navigation of the river Mis- 
sissippi was ascertained to Great Britain. The right thus ascertained was 
exercised by the subjects of that crown till the peace of 1783, and con- 
jointly with them by the citizens of the United States. 

"By the treaty in which Great Britain acknowledged the independence 
of the United States, she also ceded to them the free navigation of the 
river Mississippi. It was a right naturally and essentially annexed to the 
possession of this Western country. As such, it was claimed by America, 
and it was upon that principle that she claimed it; yet the court of Spain, 
who possess the country at the mouth of the Mississippi, have obstructed 
your citizens in the enjoyment of that right. 

"If policy is the motive which actuates political conduct, you will sup- 
port us in this right, and thereby enable us to assist in the support of 
government. If you will be really our fathers, stretch forth your hands to 
save us. If you will be worthy guardians, defend our rights. We are a 
member that would exert any muscle for your service. Do not cut us off 
from your body. By every tie of consanguinity and affection, by the re- 
membrance of the blood we have mingled in the common cause, by a 
regard to justice and policy, we conjure you to procure our right. 

"Let not your beneficence be circumscribed by the mountains which 
divide us, but let us feel that you really are the guardians and asserters 
of our rights; then you will secure the prayers of a people whose grati- 
tude would be as warm as the vindication of their rights will be eternal; 
then our connection shall be perpetuated to the latest times, a monument 
of your justice and a terror to your enemies." 

The address to the Legislature for an act of separation, which was now 
finally acted on by the convention, next followed: 

" Ta the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia: Gentle- 
men : The representatives of the good people inhabiting the several counties 
composing the district of Kentucky, in convention met, beg leave again to 
address you on the great and important subject of their separation from the 
parent State and being made a member of the Federal Union. 

"Being fully impressed with these ideas, and justified by frequent ex- 
amples, we conceive it our duty, from the regard we owe to our constituents, 
and being encouraged by the resolutions of Congress, again to apply to 
your honorable body, praying that an act may pass at the present session 
for enabling the good people of the Kentucky district to obtain an inde- 
pendent government, and be admitted into the confederation as a member 
of the Federal Union, upon such terms and conditions as to you may appear 
just and equitable, and that you transmit such act to the president of this 
convention, with all convenient dispatch, in order for our consideration and 

19 



290 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the final completion of the business. Finally, we again solicit the friendly- 
interposition of the parent State with the Congress of the United States 
for a speedy admission of the district into the Federal Union, and also to 
urge that honorable body, in the most express terms, to take effectual meas- 
ures for procuring to the inhabitants of this district the free navigation of 
the river Mississippi, without which the situation of a large part of the com- 
munity will be wretched and miserable, and may be the source of future 
evils. 

' ' Ordered, That the president sign, and the clerk attest, the said address, 
and that the same be enclosed by the president to the speaker of the House 
of Delegates." 

On motion of Delegate Wilkinson, it was 
^' Resolved, That a committee be appointed to draft an address to the 
•good people of this district, setting forth the principles from which this 
convention act, representing to them their true situation, urging the neces- 
sity of union, concord, and mutual concession, and solemnly calling on 
them to furnish this convention, at its next session, with instructions in what 
manner to proceed on the important subject to them submitted. It was im- 
portant thus to educate the mind of the people as emergency demanded. 

Messrs. Wilkinson, Innes, Jouett, Muter, Sebastian, Allen, and Caldwell 
were made the committee. It was surmised that this action was forced 
through the convention by the dominant Court party, to give them the ad- 
vantage of authority to so address the people as to more easily arouse and 
excite them to precipitate the act of separation. But it is a notable fact 
that the committee, though in control of the Court party, forbore to avail 
themselves of this open opportunity for agitation before the people, whose 
sentiment and sympathies were largely with them. It is but another evi- 
dence that the Court party really preferred, and most ardently desired to 
have Kentucky separate from Virginia after the methods of loyal pro- 
cedure, and be adopted into the Union as a State, if it could be done with 
promptness and on terms of honorable guarantee of protective equality. 

Thus adjourned a convention that gave rise to the most criminating and 
intensely bitter partisan discussions that had yet been known among the 
people, and during which, and since, the motives of men have been un- 
■charitably aspersed and their actions characterized in language of merciless 
;severity. A careful and dispassionate study of the events of this era, at 
this remote day, will lead to the conclusion that the men of both sides, 
with one or two important exceptions to be hereafter noticed, were impelled 
by what seemed to them honorable and justifiable motives in the divergent 
courses pursued, and that both were acting for what they conceived to be 
the best interests of their country and people. In the convention, and 
before, there were only the circumstances of appearance, and these too in- 
conclusive to base even the charge of constructive treason upon. Treason 
in intent and act is an offense too grave to be lightly charged to the scar- 



KENTUCKY SAVED TO THE UNION. 29I 

worn veterans and tried patriots of that generation who made up the rank 
and file of both the Court and Country parties in this contest. 

In making up the verdict of judgment on the former, we must consider 
that the chaotic and imbecile Government of the Union of 1788 was a very- 
doubtful and precarious hope of the future, compared to the Union of to- 
day; and the proposed independent separation from Virginia was just what 
Virginia and the other States had done a few years before with Great Britain, 
and apparently with less cogent reasons. 

There is no doubt but that Spain was actively intriguing with leading 
citizens, and offering the most tempting advantages to Kentucky and bribes 
to individuals, to separate and set up an independent government. When 
we consider that Kentucky was disbarred then by distance and impassable 
mountains from trade with the Atlantic ports, and was offered the exclusive 
navigation of the Mississippi, and trade with all Spanish America, which 
embraced the vast territory west of the Mississippi to the gulf, all east of the 
Mississippi to the Atlantic, below the latitude of Natchez, and all of Mexico, 
a territory as large as the present United States and Territories, the contrast 
to the neglected and starved orphanage which the Union was holding out to 
her was as much as mortal nature could bear. 

Pending these delays which Virginia extended through so many years, 
by imposing the condition of congressional acceptance, vast quantities of 
the best lands of Kentucky were being absorbed by Virginia warrants and 
sales, and vast sums therefor flowing into the treasury of the latter, which 
the Western people felt should be reserved for their own benefit, since they 
had sustained their own war. One and a half million dollars from this 
source went into the treasury of Virginia, in the last four years of this con- 
test for Kentucky autonomy. ^ There were reasonable suspicions that the 
motives for restrictive delays, on the part of Virginia statesmanship, were 
mercenary as well as patriotic. 

Yet the great body of the citizenship had emigrated from Virginia, and 
universally retained an admiration and affection for the grand old Dominion, 
akin to that felt by children who have gone out into the world, for their old 
"home and venerated parents. It was this touching and ardent love of Vir- 
ginia by her children that, probably more than any other one cause, saved 
Kentucky to the Union. Through all this period of peril and doubt, though 
she vexed them sorely sometimes, their hearts were with the old mother 
State, where their fathers were buried, and where their old homes and kin- 
dred were ever green in memory. 

2 Of General Wilkinson, the most open advocate of separation, the cir- 
cumstances were exceptional. He was born in Eastern Maryland, well 
educated, and qualified for the practice of medicine. At the outbreak of 
the Revolutionary war, he entered the patriot army, and, by ability and 
distinguished services, attained to considerable note. He was at the siege 

I Littell's Political Transactions, p. S3- 2 Wilkinson's Memoirs. 



292 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of Boston, was aid-de-camp to Arnold in Canada, and in the campaign that 
ended at Saratoga. He became involved in the difficulties between Gates 
and Washington, and soon after was made brevet brigadier-general. He 
quarreled with Gates, and resigned his brevet rank, retaining a colonel's 
commission. Congress approved his conduct toward Gates, and he was 
soon after made clothier-general of the army, in which capacity he served 
until the close of the war. After the war, he engaged with some capitalists 
of Philadelphia in a scheme of trade on the Mississippi, which led him to- 
remove to Kentucky, where our history found him. 

Toward Virginia he felt none of those ties of veneration and sympathy^ 
which were common to the majority of Kentuckians. A life of bold ad- 
venture found him without ardent local attachments, though he had been 
brave and patriotic in the cause of American liberty. His horoscope of the 
disordered and chaotic condition of the country opened to his view a mag- 
nificent future for Kentucky, and for himself, in the commerce of the Mis- 
sissippi river and the trade of Spanish America. In this he had already^ 
embarked, and his enterprise may have been both lucrative and legitimate. 
Of the covetous desires of the Spanish authorities to detach Kentucky from 
the Union, and to make of it the nucleus of independent empire, to hold in 
check the territorial expansion of the United States, and to control the 
navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, Wilkinson, no doubt, availed of, to 
secure for himself extraordinary traffic arrangements. He was a man of 
policy, with little of respect or reverence for the antiquated precedents and 
formulas of political doctrinaires, in carving out a destiny for the country 
and people of his adoption, or for himself He weighed in his commercial 
balances the pending issues, and, with his party associates, determined that 
under no circumstances should the right of navigation be bartered away and 
permanently lost to Kentucky. Had it not been for this resolute protest 
of the Court party in Kentucky, and the support they received from Vir- 
ginia and Pennsylvania, it is probable that the obnoxious recommendation 
of John Jay might have been a part of the treaty with Spain. In the mean- 
time, Wilkinson seems never to have lost sight of the main opportunities 
presented for personal gain and aggrandizement. 

The closing and subsequent proceedings of the last Danville convention 
show that the preference of all parties was for an early separation from Vir- 
ginia and reception into the Union, on grounds of equitable advantage. 
The Country party of negative submission were wiUing for any terms which 
might be conceded, while the Court party boldly demanded equitable rights 
and relations in the Union, and offered the alternative of independent sepa- 
ration and the control of their own future, in time, without these. 

No party intended such an act of political harlotry as a provincial de- 
pendency under the protectorate of Spain, or anything more than commercial] 
relations, granting to Kentucky the right of navigation and exclusive trade. 1 
With consummate skill, the party under the lead of Wilkinson played this 



LETTER TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. 293 

game of diplomatic strategy to tantalize the eager rapacity of Spain, while 
they menaced Congress to action, by pointing to the open arms and seductive 
blandishments with which Spain stood ready to welcome Kentucky to her 
alliance. Both parties were loyal. Only ill-treatment could have driven 
Kentucky from the Union. She had no alternative. 

Enemies characterized the exclusive trade privileges granted to Wilkin- 
son as indirect bribery. In law or morals, the trade privileges may be 
excused. But was Wilkinson bribed? 

We reproduce the views of Butler, who professed to have given to these 
questions the most searching and disinterested examination. Noting that 
on the 4th of March, 1789, Washington had taken his seat as first president 
of the United States, he says : 

1 "To the new president-elect, Colonel Thomas Marshall wrote an ac- 
count of the district, and of such symptoms of foreign intrigue and internal 
disaffection as had manifested themselves to him, the names of Wilkinson 
and Brown being alone mentioned among the implicated. In this commu- 
nication Colonel Marshall was, it ought not to be doubted, actuated by an 
honorable zeal for the interests of his country; though the author is com- 
pelled to say, from the evidence now accessible, a mistaken one, of which 
both he and his illustrious correspondent were afterward convinced. This 
inference flows from a letter of General Washington to Colonel Marshall, 
as follows : 'In acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the nth of Sep- 
tember, I must beg you to accept my thanks for the pleasing communication 
which it contains of the good disposition of the people of Kentucky toward 
the Government of the United States. I never doubted but that the opera- 
ations of this Government, if not perverted by prejudice or evil designs, 
would inspire the citizens of America with such confidence in it, as effectu- 
ally to do away these apprehensions which, under our former confederation, 
our best men entertained of divisions among themselves, or allurements from 
other nations. I am, therefore, happy to find that such a disposition prevails 
in your part of the country as to remove any idea of that evil, which a few 
years ago you so much dreaded.' This letter, taken in connection with 
the subsequent appointment of Wilkinson to be a lieutenant-colonel in the 
army, at the recommendation of Colonel Marshall, as well as others, and 
the repeated military commissions of high trust and expressions of thanks, 
as will hereafter appear, to Messrs. Brown, Innes, Scott, Shelby, and Logan, 
amply confirms the idea that the imputed disaffection of any of these distin- 
guished citizens to the Union of the States had been abandoned by Colonel 
Marshall himself; and most certainly by Washington, if ever admitted to 
■disturb his serene and benevolent mind." 

In the picturesque language of Wilkinson himself, "The people are open 
to savage depredations ; exposed to the jealousies of the Spanish Govern- 
ment, unprotected by that of the old confederation, and denied the naviga- 

I Butler, p. 182. 



2Q4 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tion of the Mississippi, the only practicable channel by which the productions 
of their labor can find a market." Daniel Clarke to Secretary Pickering 
writes: "All who ventured on the Mississippi had their property seized by 
the first commanding officer whom they met, and little or no communication 
was kept up between the two countries." 

In such a state of affairs, just as plausible charges of treason had been 
often made, by partisan enemies, against Washington and Lee and Adams, as 
were against Wilkinson and Brown and Innes at this period. The sympa- 
thizing masses did not credit them. 

1 In April, 1787, the house of Widow Skeggs, on Cooper's run, Bourbon 
county, was attacked at night by Indians. There were two sons and four 
daughters, one a widow with a babe. They broke down the door of the 
room where were three daughters, out of range of the rifles of their broth- 
ers, in the other room of the double cabin. The elder daughter plunged a 
knife into the heart of a savage. His comrades dashed out her brains, and 
those of her youngest sister, with their tomahawks, and made a captive of 
the third. Setting fire to the house, they awaited the appearance of the 
other inmates. One son supported his mother as the attempt to escape was 
made. The blazing building made it as light as day. As they ran, the 
mother fell pierced through by bullets, while the son escaped. The othef 
son bravely defended his sister and her babe, as they ran in another direc- 
tion. The Indians threw down their guns and rushed on them with toma- 
hawks. The brother fired on them as they approached, then clubbed his 
gun and fought with such a tiger's fury, as to draw the attention of the sav- 
ages entirely to himself, while his sister reached the darkness of the woods, 
and escaped with her child. The brave man fell under the murderous toma- 
hawks ; and the four slain were found, all scalped and mangled, the next 
morning. Pursuit was made, the Indians overtaken, and two shot, bat not 
until they had fatally tomahawked the maiden captive. 

2 In the summer of the same year, John Merrill, of Nelson county, aroused 
by some disturbance oatside about midnight, arose and opened his cabin 
door, to ascertain the cause, when several shots from Indians broke his arm 
and leg. With the aid of his wife, he was gotten inside, and the door fast- 
ened. It was at once assailed with tomahawks, and a breach effected. Mrs. 
Merrill was fortunately as muscular and active as she was resolute and brave. 
Her husband prostrate and disabled, she assumed the forlorn defense. 
Seizing an ax, she met the Indians at the breach, and successively killed or 
disabled four, as they attempted to enter. Baffled at the door, the remaining 
Indians mounted to the roof of the house, and two of them started down 
the wide chimney. Mrs. Merrill seized her only feather bed, ripped it open, 
and poured the contents on the fire. The stifling smoke and blaze brought 
down the suffocating savages, both of whom the heroic woman dispatched 
with the ax. At this moment, the only remaining of seven Indians was 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 664. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 72. 



Al'TACK ON A FLAT-BOAT. 295 

heard at the door, trying to enter. A fearful cut in the cheek from the 
bloody ax drove him off, and ended this most remarkable midnight battle, 
A prisoner related, afterward, that this last wounded Indian returned to 
Chillicothe, with a marvelous story of the fierceness and prowess of the Long 
Knife squaw. 

1 A station at Drennon's Lick, Henry county, was, about the same time^ 
captured by the enemy, and several whites killed. A number of depreda- 
tions having been committed within the Mason county settlements, an expe- 
dition of several hundred men was organized, under the active agency of 
Kenton and others, and placed under the lead of Colonel Todd. Chilli- 
cothe and other towns were burned, many Indians were killed, and much 
property destroyed by this force, proving a serious injury to the Indians. 
Captain Kenton, with his company of rangers, was kept quite busy for 
several years, repelling the invasions of, and in chastising, the marauding 
savages. He was the recognized leader in the work of border defense in 
that section. 

2 In May, 1788, a flat-boat load of kettles were being carried from Louis- 
ville, by the mouth of Salt river, up to Bullitt's Lick, near the site of Shep- 
herdsville. The owners, Henry Crist and Solomon Spears, with Christian 
Crepps, Thomas Floyd, Joseph Boyce, Evans Moore, Mr. Fossett and five 
other men, and one woman, thirteen in all, composed the crew. Discover- 
ing Indian signs on the banks of Salt river, they kept a scout ahead of the 
boat. About dusk, when not far below the mouth of Rolling Fork, they 
heard the gobbling of turkeys, as they supposed. Two of the party sprang 
ashore to kill the game, and were fired on by Indians who had decoyed 
them with the imitative sound. In another moment they were seen running 
to the boat, pursued by a large body of savages. The crew promptly seized 
their guns and delivered a volley into the advancing enemy, and with deadly 
effect. The river was at flood height; and the boat, chained to a tree, 
stood out from the bank. Fossett and his companion plunged in and swam 
to the boat, the former with a broken arm, both holding their guns. The 
Indians proved to be a large party, ten to one of the whites, and had been 
watching the little crew. So sanguine were they of their prey, that they 
rushed to the water's edge, and some even tried to draw the boat to the 
shore. The fatal rifles of the whites slew them on the shore and in the 
water, until they were driven back to cover behind the trees. The battle 
waged with mutual destruction. Though the kettles were ranked up as a 
breastwork on the sides of the flat, the boat was fastened by a chain that 
held its bow to the shore, and exposed the crew to a raking fire. They were 
being exterminated, and must loose the chain, or all perish. Fossett, a lion- 
hearted Irishman, with an arm broken, could not use his rifle well; but with 
his other arm, seized a pole and, in full view of the savages, worked at the 
hook until it was unfastened, and the boat floated out into the stream. 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 644. 2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 102. 



296 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Crist and Crepps stood over him, keeping the Indians treed, while the re- 
lease was made. The disaster to the crew was caused by this fatal fasten- 
ing of the boat. 

The battle had lasted an hour. Six brave men lay dead or dying in the 
gangway; Floyd, Fossett, and Boyer badly wounded; and Crist, Crepps, 
and Moore unhurt. The boat gradually neared the southern side of the 
river. On looking above, they saw some fifty of the enemy crossing the 
river to intercept them, some on logs and some swimming. With a large 
body of Indians on both sides of the stream, escape of the boat was now 
impossible. Spears, lying fatally wounded, had begged that the boat, when 
loosed, be carried immediately to the other shore, and all escape who could ; 
which was then feasible. The survivors resolutely refused to abandon the 
wounded. The boat soon touched the southern bank, and the three wounded 
helped ashore, and to concealment in the brush. Crist, Crepps, and Moore 
now returned to assist the woman ; but no entreaty could move her. The 
fright had so paralyzed her faculties, that she sat dazed and insensible to all 
around, with her face buried in her hands. 

The Indians, having gained the south side, were seen rushing toward the 
boat, yelling like bloodhounds. The three surviving combatants charged 
the savages with a shout, on which they fell back to a ravine. The former 
pushed on to the forest in the hope of escape, when, as they passed, the 
savages rallied from the ravine and fired on them. Crepps received a ball 
in his left side, and Crist one through his foot, crushing the bones, while 
Moore escaped, and bore the tidings to the Lick of the catastrophe. Crepps 
was found and brought in, but died a few hours after. 

Crist hobbled on the next day to the vicinity of Long Lick, when, sick- 
ened and faint, he laid down to die. Over the rocks and roots and thorns, 
his other foot gave out, and he could not walk. He bound his moccasins 
on his knees, and crawled. The second night out, he came in sight of an 
Indian camp-fire, and aroused the barking of a dog. Several red men arose 
up to look around, when he crept back to the bushes, and continued his slow 
journey. At night, managing to roll a log into the river, he crossed over on 
it, and resumed his journey. He knew he was some eight miles from Bul- 
litt's Lick, which he wished now to reach. He could crawl a quarter or 
half a mile an hour. His moccasins wore out. Next his hat, his hunting 
shirt, and vest were consumed, as sandals for the knees and hands. 

On the night of the third day, worn with hunger, want of sleep, acute 
pain, and raging thirst, he came in the neighborhood of the salt-works. But 
nature was once more exhausted, and he laid himself down again to die, 
and in sight of the many fires burning under the salt kettles in the distance. 
After a weary night, morning came, and with it the sound of horses' hoofs. 
He called out to the rider, but, to his dismay, the sounds went clattering away 
toward the Lick. It proved to be a negro, who, alarmed at the cry, had 
dashed away to the salt camp, with a report of Indians near. On close 



NEW METHOD OF INDIAN WARFARE. 297 

questioning, and on supposition that it might be some one escaped from 

- the boat's crew, a party went in search, and found the despairing sufferer. 
A long year passed before Crist was well of his injuries. 

; The woman in the boat was carried a prisoner to Canada. Ten years 
. after, Crist met her again in Kentucky, she having been ransomed by an 
i Indian trader and brought into General Wayne's camp on the Maumee, and 
; restored to her friends. She informed Crist that the body of Indians who 
i-made the attack on the boat numbered over one hundred and twenty, and 

- that thirty of them were killed in the engagement. This statement was con- 
I firmed to Crist by Indians whom he met afterward, and who had been in 

the battle. 

Crist described Crepps as a tall, fair-haired, handsome man, and, al- 
though of kindly spirit, brave and daring in every danger. While a gentle- 
man in every bearing, he was possessed of all those striking qualities that 
made up the heroic manhood of pioneer life in Kentucky. He characterized 
him as the lion of the desperate combat in which he received his death 
wound. Crepps left a young wife and son. A posthumous daughter was 
j born to her, who in years became the wife of Hon. Charles A. Wickliffe, 
! afterward governor of Kentucky, and postmaster-general under President 
Tyler, besides holding several other important official positions, and whose 
son, Hon, J. Crepps Wickliffe, was United States attorney for the district 
of Kentucky, by appointment of President Cleveland, 

Indian raids, with spoliations and massacres, were too numerous through- 
1 out the district to attempt to encumber the narrative of history with more 
than a moiety. Crab Orchard, Floyd's Fork, Drennon's Lick, Great Cross- 
ings, Blue Licks, Kenton's station, Hardin's settlement, and countless other 
places had been subjected to these ever-recurring and intolerable outrages. 

They began a new method of warfare, which, for a time, was very har- 
assing. Capturing a flat-boat on the Ohio, they manned and fortified it, 
and learned how to manage it. With this, they captured several family and 
trading-boats on the river, massacred those on board, and carried off their 
goods. Thus besetting the great avenue of ingress, they spread new alarm 
beyond the State limits to those desiring to emigrate, as well as among those 
near the Ohio. 

Of the many captures on the river, Spaulding, in his "Early Sketches 
of Catholic Missions in Kentucky," gives an intensely-interesting account 
of that of John Lancaster and several comrades, at the mouth of Miami. 
They were carried off to a village seventy miles back, and very rudely 
treated for a time. Finally, Lancaster was adopted into an Indian family 
and treated as one of them, until he happened to be left in the care of an- 
other Indian, in the absence of his foster brother, who became very threat- 
ening and brutal. In fear of his life being taken, Lancaster made his escape, 
and, though pursued, with a pack of dogs on his trail, he managed to reach 
the Ohio river, make a raft of logs tied together with bark, and float down, 



298 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

by night, to Louisville. But we must not now dwell further on these recitals- 
of carnage and cruelty. 

Before the close of 1788, another tempter came to pay court to the maid- 
enly young doweress of the West. Dr. Connolly, the same whose British 
loyalty cost him the confiscation of two thousand acres of land on the site 
of Louisville, appeared in Lexington, professedly to ascertain the possibility 
of recovering his lost estate. He was direct from Quebec, and accompanied 
by Colonel Campbell, of Louisville. They called on Colonel Thomas Mar- 
shall and Judge Muter, and afterward on General Wilkinson. The doctor 
was authorized to say, in confidence, that Great Britain stood ready to 
guarantee the same protection to Kentucky as to Canada, if she would ally 
herself in any way with the empire, and that the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi would be secured to her. To enforce this assurance, there were four 
thousand British troops in Canada ready to be sent down the Mississippi to 
capture New Orleans, if need be. A rumor got out in the community that 
a British spy was in town, and very strong indications of summary violence 
were manifested. Meeting with a cold reception from Marshall, Wilkinson,, 
and others whom he had approached, and learning the state of public feel- 
ing, Connolly was extricated by being privately conveyed to Maysville, on 
his return to Canada. The intense resentment toward England for her con- 
tinued incitement of the Lidians to murder and pillage the settlers was such, 
that an agent, on such a mission, was really in imminent danger of per- 
sonal violence. His views and plans were but partially exposed. 

This year the site of Cincinnati was first surveyed and laid out for a city. 
Matthias Denman purchased of Judge Symmes nearly eight hundred acres 
of land, lying opposite the mouth of Licking, for five hundred dollars in 
continental money. He resold two-thirds to John Filson and Colonel Rob- 
ert Patterson, who, with a party of fifteen, came down from Limestone and 
surveyed and staked it off in lots, and gave it the name of Losantiville. 
Filson, who was the first historian of pioneer Kentucky, venturing too far 
from camp, was killed by Indians. 

The Legislature of Virginia created the counties of Mason and Wood- 
ford, and chartered the towns of Maysville, Danville, and Hopewell, now 
Paris, this year. 



EVENTS OF THE PERIOD FROM I79O TO I 795- 



299 



CHAPTER XX. 



(1790-95.) 



Population in i790- 

Ninth convention accepts the fourth act 
'of the Virginia Assembly. 
< Fixes the 1st of June, 1792, to enter the 
"Union. 

I On county-court clays, in December, del- 
-egates to be elected to frame a constitu- 
ftion. 

Constitutional convention to meet first 
"Monday in April. 

• Indian hostilities continue. 

- Loyalty of Kentucky to the Union. 
t' Convention meets. 

L McDowell president. 

George Nicholas' prominence. 

Constitution formed. 

Comments. 

Indian raids at many points. 

• General Scott destroys their crops and 
•towns in Ohio. 

: British yet retain the forts and incite 
Indian hostilities. 

- Harmar's defeat. 

Local military board appointed. 

Scott's and Wilkinson's expeditions to 
"the Wabash. 

Successful results. 

Captain Hubbell's desperate boat fight. 
" May's disaster. 

Captain Marshall's escape. 

Raid on Elkhorn, near Frankfort. 

Other raids. 

St. Clair in command. 

Protest of Western men. 

Colonel Oldham commands the Ken- 
:ucky troops. 

Campaign and defeat of St. Clair. 

Wilkinson made colonel in the regular 
irmy. 

Isaac Shell ly first governor. 

Other first State officials. 

Contentions over the capital site. 



Legislature organizes the judiciary de- 
partment. 

Wages and values of the day. 
Scarcity of specie. 

Repulse of Major Adair. 

Murder of Hardin and Truman. 

False philanthropy excuses the Indian 
atrocities. 

Policy of partialism to the Indian. 

Injury to him and the whites. 

President Washington orders a treaty 
council. 

A historian's comment. 

Indians refuse to treat. 

General Wayne in command of the 
West. 

Scott joins him with one thousand Ken- 
tuckians. 

Sparks from the French revolution kin- 
dle Jacobin fires in America. 

Burn furiously in Kentucky. 

Societies formed. 

The people suspicious of centralism. 

Resolution of the Lexington club. 

Pledge to support France evaded. 

French emissaries enter Kentucky w ith 
commissions for citizens, to enlist two thou- 
sand men to capture New Orleans. 

Clark chief commandant. 

Governor Shelby's position. 

Secretary Randolph's letter. 

Genet's triumphal tone. 

His insolence. 

His recall. 

Intense sentiment universal. 

The collapse. 

Governor Shelby. 

General Wayne's campaign renewed. 

Confidence of Kentuckians in him. 

Battle and victory. 

British insolence. 

Kentuckians anxious to attack the fort. 



300 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Treaties with the Indians. 
Whitley's exploits. 
■Last Indian raids. 



Big Joe Logston's fight. 

Chapman's station. 

Last incursion in Mason county. 



The population of Kentucky in 1790 was sixty-one thousand one hun- 
dred and thirty-three whites, twelve thousand four hundred and thirty slaves, 
and one hundred and fourteen free blacks, a total of seventy-three thousand six 
hundred and seventy-seven. On account of the rude treatment and neglect 
by the Government, and the indifference to the results, no vote was cast in 
the district of Kentucky in January, 1789, for electors for president and 
vice-president, the first national election. The third act of separation was 
passed by Virginia, with clauses very objectionable to the people of Ken- 
tucky. These required of the latter the payment of a portion of the do- 
mestic debt of Virginia, after they had defended the frontiers at their own 
cost, and also that both the continental and State soldiers of Virginia should 
locate their lands under warrants in Kentucky. 

1 In July, 1789, the eighth convention met at Danville, and rejected these 
conditions, and memorialized the Legislature to abolish them. In Decem- 
ber, this memorial was complied with, and the objectionable provisions 
expunged by a fourth act of separation on the part of Virginia. This lat- 
ter act required a new convention to assemble on the 26th of July, 1790, 
to determine their wishes for separation; and added the conditions that Con- 
gress should release Virginia, prior to the ist of November, 1791, from all 
her Federal obligations, arising from the district^ that the- proposed State shall, 
on the day after separation, be admitted into the Union, and that such day of 
admission be after the ist of November, 1791. On July 26, 1790, the tiinth 
convention-elect met at Danville, and accepted the modified terms of the 
last act of the General Assembly, and fixed on the ist day of June, 1792, 
when Kentucky should become a State separate from, and independent of, 
the government of Virginia. Afterward, an address to the Legislature was 
adopted, and also a inemorial to President Washington, praying Congress 
and the president to sanction the proceedings, and expressing a feeling of 
admiration and loyalty for the form of government established. Finally, it 
was resolved that, on the respective court days of the several counties, in 
December, 1791, delegates be elected, who should, on the first Monday in 
April, 1792, meet in convention at Danville, and there frame a constitution 
for the anticipated Commonwealth, and a proper code of laws, to remain in 
force until substituted by subsequent legislation. 

In February, 1791, Congress, in session, passed the act to admit Ken- 
tucky as one of the States of the Union, to have effect on the ist of June, 
1792. All obstacles being now removed for the free action and expression 
of the people of Kentucky, they proceeded in December, 1791, to elect 
delegates who, on the 3d day of April, 1792, met and proceeded to adopt 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 360. 



LOYALTY OF KENTUCKY. 



3or 



the first constitution of the Commonwealth, to be recognized on the ist day 
of June. 

Thus, from the first meetings in 1784, to consider the necessity of form- 
ing an independent State government for their own protection and man- 
agement of home affairs, until the admission into the Union eight years 
' after, the people of Kentucky were subjected to the torturing and irritating 
necessity of appointing or electing delegates for assemblage in ten successive 
conventions, were embarrassed by the sectional jealousies of the North- 
' eastern States for a natural affiliation with the Union, and hampered and 
delayed by the restrictive legislation of Virginia. During this period, the 
Indians, both on the north and the south, unremittingly pursued their raid- 
ing practices, murdering men, women, and children, with all the atrocities 
of their savage natures, stealing and destroying property, and harassing 
the settlements in every conceivable way, while Kentucky was left to her 
own defense. In the most gloomy period of these inauspicious surroundings, 
the temptations of Spanish intrigue, with the alternative of independent gov- 
ernment, and the full right to use all her forces for defense, came to the peo- 
ple. The love of order and of the institutions of liberty were deeply grounded 
in the hearts of the pioneers; and this love gave patience and endurance 
through all this ordeal of trials, of discouragements, and of temptations — a 
test of the loyalty of Kentucky, severer than the citizens of any other State 
have experienced. To quote from McClung, that eloquent historian : " It 
is impossible not to be struck Avith the love of order, the respect for law, 
and the passionate attachment to their kindred race beyond the mountains, 
which characterized this brave and simple race of hunters and farmers. 
The neglect of the old confederation arose, no doubt, from its inherent im- 
becility ; but never was parental care more coldly and sparingly administered. 
Separated by five hundred miles of wilderness, 
exposed to the intrigues of foreign govern- 
ments, powerfully tempted by their own lead- 
ing statesmen, repulsed in every way to 
obtain constitutional independence, they 
yet clung with invincible affection to their 
Government, and turned a deaf ear t) 
the syren voice which offered them the 
richest gifts of fortune to stray from the 
fold in which they had been nurtured. 
The spectacle was beautiful and touching, 
ing, as it was novel in the history of the^ 
world." 

On the assembling of the constitutional' 
convention, Samuel McDowell, who had 
president of the nine conventions which had 
charge of the question of the separation of Samuel m'dowell. 




302 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Kentucky from Virginia, was again elected president. The constitution was, 
])erhaps, as nearly in accord with that of the Federal instrument as that 
of any other State, by the advantage of subsequent adjustment. It aban- 
doned the features of the parent State, so far as representation by counties 
was concerned, and established numbers as the basis. The executive, the 
Senate, and the judiciary, were removed from direct control of the people. 
The governor and senators were chosen by electors, who were elected by 
the people every four years. The judges were by executive appointment, 
and held during good behavior. The Supreme Court had original and final 
jurisdiction in all land causes, a provision which proved of mischievous and 
dire woe after. 

The comments of Marshall, in his history, on the first experiment at 
organic law in the Commonwealth, are very interesting, as presenting the 
views of a learned contemporary, and one who was an acknowledged leader 
in the Federal party, or, as they were better known in the popular and pro- 
vincial style of the day, the Country party. The distinguished author was 
learned in the law of statesmanship, as expounded through the Federalist^ 
in the masterly and able essays of Hamilton, Jay, Madison, and others. 
With the excesses of the French revolution, and other erraticisms of un- 
disciplined democracy, fresh in memory, it is not to be wondered at that a 
powerful element of conservatism looked with apprehension to the con- 
cession of too much power to the people. With the traditions and policies 
of the old era, and the partial demonstrations of the experiments of the 
new, for guidance, it was not unreasonable that many statesmen of the day 
should seek a remedy against the abuses of popular suffrage, in measures of 
limitation and restriction thrown around the electors, rather than to have 
turned to the wiser and better remedy of to-day, of qualifying universal 
suffrage by universal education. It was not so well understood then, as 
now, that popular suffrage, once conceded, never yields or compromises its 
powers and franchises, but, with insatiable instinct, continues to demand, 
until the last barriers are broken down, and civil rights are made equal to 
all. Modern statesmanship admits no alternative; the people must be edu- 
cated and qualified for self-government is the canonized doctrine of to-day. 
^ The contemporary historian says : 

"It is to be observed that antecedent to the formation of the Constitution. 
an immense mass of information had been presented to the public mind in 
newspaper essays, and in books, on political subjects. While, in addition to 
these, may be mentioned the Constitutions of the States, as storehouses or 
fountains of information, from which to draw constitutional provisions. 

"Excepting, however, the provisions for forming the senate, and the 
original jurisdiction given to the court of appeals, the Constitution of Ken- 
tucky resembling in its general arrangements that of the United States, and 
in its details those of the several States, is, in reality, the genuine offspring of 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p 414 



CONSTITUTION OF KENTUCKY. 303 

the local circumstances and habitual modes of thinking and acting, common 
to a majority of the people of the country at the time — the result of prin- 
,ciples,' inculcated and imbibed in the Revolution, brought with the emigrants, 
[and here cherished and propagated, from the first to the last settlement. 
It was made for present use rather than futurity ; for the then condition of 
the country, more than for one materially different, which was to ensue in 
the course of progressive population and change of circumstances ; in short, 
,it was the result of feeling, not of foresight — of prepossession, rather than 
a full knowledge of the subject. It was a representative democracy, instead 
:.of a real republic, as all governments should be. It contained, neverthe- 
less, most of the essential principles and material parts of a good constitu- 
tion, but defective in some. In others, ill-assorted, and the checks inade- 
,quate. 

"The constitution of 1792 exhibits plenary evidence of a compromise, 
if not of a contest ; and the mode of forming the Senate, and of electing 
jhe governor, was an attempt to check and control the downright and broad 
democracy avowed in the equality of all men, and reduced to practice in 
Jhe equal right of suffrage, throughout all the primary elections. That such 
,was the design of the contrivance is manifest, as well on inspecting its feat- 
ures, as from the resistance it met with after its proposed operation was 
.ascertained, and which terminated only in its dissolution by that democracy, 
^ which abolished any compromise that might have been made. 

"Take from the first Constitution of Kentucky the mode of electing 

militia company officers, the mode of electing sheriffs and coroners, and the 

original jurisdiction of the court of appeals, and render the electors of the 

.governor and senators eligible by citizens having the fee-simple estate in one 

.hundred acres of land, and upward, on which one family at least, should 

reside ; and it may be put in competition with any constitution in America, 

^ without the hazard of .a blush, and with a challenge of equal merit ; it would, 

. in reality, be excellent. 

"Take it as it is, with the exception of the original jurisdiction of the 
J appellate court, and it may be held up to the world as the delineation of a 
^ constitution nearly perfect and truly republican in its apparent features. 
Its design is obviously to embrace both extremes of the heterogeneous mass 
^ of human beings who compose the great community which it was to gov- 
, ern, and from whom were to be drawn by election such individuals as were 
to exercise the powers of government ; while the deficiency lies in the sub- 
, stratum of the Senate." 

In 1790, Indian massacres, incendiarisms, and pillages were reported at 

, Lee's creek; on Hanging Fork of Dick's river; in Kennedy's bottom, where 

, the settlers were all driven out; on the Ohio, on John May's boat, where 

I the crew were killed or taken prisoners; on three boats near the mouth of 

the Scioto; on Beargrass; at Big Bone Lick; at Baker's station; on a boat 

near Three Islands, in the Ohio, and at maj y other points. These aggres- 



304 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

sions called for retaliatory punishment. General Scott, with two hundred 
and thirty volunteers, crossed the Ohio at Limestone, and was joined by 
General Harmar, with one hundred United States regulars, and all marcheu 
for the Scioto towns. The Indians avoided any general engagement, and 
retreated. Some of them were killed, and their property destroyed. 

From the military posts of Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinaw, yet detained 
contrary to the terms of the treaty of peace eight years before, the British 
continued treacherously to supply the Indians with munitions of war, and to 
incite them to hostilities against the frontiersmen. ^McAfee recites, in evi- 
dence of this, the letters of Colonel McKee, the British commandant of 
Fort Miami, written soon after this, and published after in the American 
journals, having fallen into the hands of our Government. There were many 
people in England who hoped that the British power would some day regain, 
the sovereignty of the States, and in this hope probably the ministry shared. 
From this, and also from the chagrin and irritation caused by the failure of 
their arms in the Revolutionary struggle, proceeded this unjustifiable con- 
duct. It resulted in no advancement to any interest whatever of England 
or her colonies; but did have the effect to cause the butchery of thousands 
of men, women, and children of their own blood and kindred, and the almost 
complete annihilation of the tribes of miserable savages whom they bribed 
and incited to engage in these atrocities. President Washington was well 
apprised of these intrigues and perfidy of the English agents, and sought in 
vain for redress by negotiation. Only the exhausted state of the country 
restrained him from another resort to arms to enforce the rights of the West- 
ern men. 

The president was now convinced that treaties with the Indians were 
practically worthless to protect the frontier. He favored more energetic 
measures than Congress would sanction, but took the most effective means 
at command to chastise the savages. ^ General Harmar was furnished over 
three hundred- regulars, and authorized to call upon Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia for such volunteer contingent as were needed. The rendezvous was at 
Fort Washington, now Cincinnati ; from which place some fourteen hundred 
men began the march in September, 1790, toward the Miami towns, now 
the site of Fort Wayne. As General Harmar came in sight, with his troops, 
they beheld the main town in a blaze, having been fired by the retreating 
Indians. A detachment of one hundred and eighty Kentucky militia and 
regulars, under Colonel Hardin, were drawn into an ambuscade of some 
six hundred savages, and routed with heavy loss. The Indians were led by 
the noted chief. Little Turtle. The main body of General Harmar's troops 
lay at a distance of only six miles, but did nothing to relieve the situation. 
Having again divided his army, the smaller subdivisions under Colonel Har- 
din were attacked in detail, after the Indians had been re-enforcing for two 
days ; and after desperate and destructive fighting on either side, a general 

I McAfee's History. 2 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 362. 



ATTACK ON THE INDIAN TOWNS. 305 

retreat was ordered. In the two battles, the entire Indian forces encoun- 
tered in the first, a seventh, and in the second, a third, of the American 
army, while General Harmar lay off but a few miles with the main body 
inactive. There were nearly two hundred of the whites killed. The Indian 
loss was severe, but not ascertained. 

The prejudice of the frontiersmen against the employment of officers and 
men of the regular army was very great and well founded. Braddock's de- 
feat, where Washington's riflemen saved the remnant of the English army, 
and other experiences taught the same views to the president. But so em- 
barrassed was he by the existence of the regular military establishment 
around him, that it was next to impossible to order a military movement 
without placing at the head and front the regular officers and soldiers. It 
would have been a grievous affront to a very powerful element of the polit- 
ical machinery of the Government, in which were many old friends and 
comrades in arms. 

Though the warnings had already come from Kentucky against the policy, 
the president could not entirely heed them. Yet, to satisfy the Kentuckians, 
a local board of war was appointed, consisting of Generals Scott, Shelby, 
Innes, Logan, and Brown, who could call out the militia to act with the 
regulars when they deemed proper. 

1 Under direction of this board, an expedition of eight hundred mounted 
men, with General Scott first and General Wilkinson second in command, 
was organized. Crossing at the mouth of Kentucky river, they penetrated 
the wilderness, and reached the Indian towns on the Wabash in June, 1791, 
some forty or fifty miles north-west of Indianapolis. Colonel Hardin, with 
about one hundred men, was detached to attack some smaller villages on 
the left, while General Scott led the main body against the principal village, 
Ouiatenou, the site of Lafayette, the smoke of which was discernible. As 
the troops reached the high ground overlooking the Wabash, they discov- 
ered the Indians trying to escape in canoes over the river. Wilkinson was 
ordered to follow them up with a battalion, which he did in time to com- 
pletely empty five canoes crowded with savages, with the deadly rifles of 
his men, though under a return fire from a Kickapoo town on the opposite 
bank. Captains King and Logsdon were ordered by General Scott to cross 
their companies below this town, and, under command of Major Barbee, 
' to attack it. The enemy was soon driven out of it. Colonel Hardin had 
been successful enough to kill and capture some sixty of the enemy in the 
villages on the left. General Wilkinson, with nearly four hundred men, was 
next dispatched to attack an important town at the mouth of Eel river. 
This was successfully done, the town burned, and several hundred acres of 
grain destroyed. These assaults proved a severe chastisement to the Indians. 
Besides killing over one hundred men and taking many prisoners, extensive 
growing crops were destroyed. The troops returned home with small loss. 

I Marshall, Vol. I., p. 373. 

20 



4 



30,6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



This expedition having been undertaken so early in the season as to 
enable the Indians to replant their crops, General Wilkinson, in August, 
called for another volunteer force of five hundred men, with Colonels 
Hardin and McDowell second in command, by authority of the board of 
war. The response was prompt, and the march begun toward the same 
section on the Wabash, which they crossed some miles above the present 
site of Logansport. General Wilkinson then directed an attack upon the 
important town of Languille, as the French had given it. The enemy fled 
with little resistance, after losing nine killed and thirty taken prisoners. The 
same cruel course of destroying the crops was found necessary, and five 
hundred acres were laid waste, now too late to replant for winter supply. 

During this year, 1791, Captain Hubbell was descending the Ohio in a 
flat-boat, in which were nine men, three women, and eight children. Near 
the mouth of Kanawha, they were attacked by a large party of Indians in 
canoes, probably near one hundred in number. Captain Hubbell had served 
some six years gallantly in the army of the Revolution, and was conceded 
the command. In three canoes, manned by thirty Indians each, the attack 
was made. The fight became brisk and desperate on both sides. Captain 
Hubbell, after firing his own gun, took up one from a wounded man and 
raised it to fire, when a bullet from the enemy knocked off" the lock. He 
coolly seized a fire-brand, sighted his gun, and touched off" the powder in 
the pan. As he was in the act of firing his third shot, a ball passed through 
his right arm, and for a moment disabled him. Recovering himself, and 
seeing the Indians about to board the boat, he seized a couple of army pis- 
tols, and drove them back with eff"ective shots. Without loaded arms, he, 
with one or two of his men, beat off the Indians with billets of wood used 
in cooking. The savages, perceiving Captain Greathouse's boat, now in 
sight, left Captain Hubbell's to attack that. The crew made no resistance, 
and the men were instantly killed and the women made prisoners. The 
Indians again turned their attention to the first boat, manning their canoes 
with fresh men, and putting in their midst the captured women. It was a 
hard alternative to fire so near these women, but self-preservation is the first 
law. But four men were left capable of defense. Captain Hubbell was 
wounded twice. As the Indians would rise to fire, the men would give 
them the first fire, and usually with deadly effect. Despairing of success, 
the Indians retired to the shore. The current now carried the boat within 
thirty yards of the shore, when the only two men left unwounded were put 
at the oars to hasten it by, which was successfully done, though nine balls 
were shot into one oar and ten into the other. The current now carried the 
boat far out into the river, and the fighting ceased. Three were killed and 
five wounded. As the boat reached Limestone, hundreds of people came 
to view the scene of carnage and conflict, with the dead and wounded men, 
and also horses and cattle. The sides were specked with bullets, and in one 
blanket, hung up as a curtain, one hundred and twenty-two bullet-holes 



BRAVERY OF FRONTIER WOMEN. 



307 



were counted. A force was at once raised to disperse this body of savages, 
, who discovered several dead Indians on the shore, together with the bodies 
. of Captain Greathouse and the men, women, and children captured with 
him. 

The decoy and capture of Captain May's boat and crew, the pursuit, the 
: fighting, and the escape of Captain Thomas Marshall, with the abandonment 
: of two out of three of his boats, and many other incidents of river depreda- 
( tion, followed each other at brief intervals at this period. The skirmishes, 
: the ambushes and assassinations, the robberies of live stock, and the de- 
; struction of property, were of almost weekly occurrence. 

In April, 1792, Captains Calvin and Kenton, of Mason county, crossed 
, the Ohio and pursued a party of Indians down to the Miami valley, who 
proved to be led by Tecumseh. Though they surprised the savages by a 
night attack in camp, yet the skill and bravery of their leader not only 
saved his men from panic, but rallied them for effective resistance. The 
fighting resulted in several killed and wounded on both sides, but nothing 
decisive. 

About the same time, a prosperous settlement of the Cooks, Lewis Mastin, 
William Dunn, William Bledsoe, and several others, with their families, in 
:• Quinn's Bottom, on South Elkhorn, and some four miles from Frankfort, 
was raided by about one hundred Indians. The brothers Cook were first 
tilled, and their wives, with three little children, left to defend the cabin. 
The door was barricaded, and the only gun seized by one of the Spartan 
.. women. Having no bullets, she split in two a piece of lead and rounded it 
to fit the rifle, and quickly loaded it. The Indians had failed to beat down 
the door, and, putting the end of the gun at a small opening in the logs, she 
took deliberate aim at an Indian and shot him dead. The infuriated sav- 
ages mounted the roof and set fire to it. One of the women ran up to the 
; loft, and, while the other handed her water, put out the flames as often as 
jtthe torch was applied. The water failing, she broke a lot of eggs and 
.<iuenched the flame again. Lastly, they unrobed the vest of the dead hus- 
j band of one, saturated with his blood, and smothered the kindling fire with 
kit. The savages, bafiled and uneasy lest an escaped messenger might bring 
'•an avenging force upon them, now abandoned the house, went off a dis- 
, tance, and climbed some trees for observation. Coming down, they sunk 
J the body of the dead Indian in the waters of Elkhorn, and departed. Be- 
_^ sides the Cooks, there were killed Mastin, two of Dunn's sons, and one 
; negro, and two negroes captured. A company of one hundred men pursued 
; these bandits, but they escaped over the Ohio with a loss of one or two. 
{ This year, a scurrying band of Indians attacked the house of Mr. Stephen- 
-son, of Madison county, early in the morning before all had risen from bed. 
Firing into the house, they seriously wounded Mrs. Stephenson before de- 
. fense could be made. Stephenson sprang from the bed and seized his rifle, 
, and drove back the savages, while two young men living with him came to 



3o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the rescue. The assailants were driven off, with several killed and wounded^ 
Mr. Stephenson was wounded and one of the young men killed. 

Several raids were made into that portion of Ohio county lying next to 
Green river. In one of these, Mrs. John Anderson was scalped and two 
of her children killed, and Hannah Barnett captured and carried off. In 
another, Mcllmurray was killed. Faith wounded, and Vannada made a pris- 
oner. Earlier than this, some twenty young persons of both sexes went out 
from a station on the river, to pull flax. Two mothers went out to visit or 
carry them meals, one taking her little child. They were fired on and pur- 
sued by Indians, and all ran for the fort. The mother with the babe, being 
delicate, was falling behind, clinging to her child. The other mother turned 
back, in the face of the fire and pursuit by the Indians, took the child in 
her arms, and ran safely over two hundred yards, to the fort. The feeble 
woman fell in one hundred yards of the station, when an Indian ran up 
to tomahawk and scalp her. Just in time, a shot from one of the garrison 
stretched him dead at her side, and saved her life. 

In August, 1792, a party of Indians were marauding on Rolling Fork 
of Salt river, in Nelson county. Major Brown made a vigilant pursuit to 
overtake and chastise them. Bringing them to bay, a sharp fight ensued, 
in which four of the savages were left dead on the field, and three of the 
whites killed and wounded. 

Again we must omit the details of incessant harassments by these red 
bandits, who prowled the forests in every direction, giving but a few as 
illustrative of the perils that yet beset the settlers. 

In the appointment of a commanding officer for the West by the Federal 
Government, General Hamilton consulted Mr. Brown, then the only con- 
gressman from this section. General St. Clair's name was mentioned, when 
Brown suggested that he was old and infirm, had been unfortunate in the 
service of the Continental army, and was without the confidence of the 
Western people, who, more than ever, since Harmar's defeat, believed that 
the officers and men of the regular army were unacquainted with, and unfit 
for, the methods of Indian warfare. It was difficult to ignore the demands 
of the military arm of the national service, and the appointment of St. Clair 
was made, with a concessicwi to the Kentuckians of the improvised military 
board, of which mention has been made. 

The Government now felt the necessity of more enlarged measures and 
plans for the punishment and subjugation of the savage tribes. Orders were 
issued to enlist in several States troops for the regular service, to the num- 
ber of two thousand, to be placed under the command of General St. Clair. 
Kentucky had been called upon for about one thousand volunteers ; but so 
intense was the feeling of prejudice against General St. Clair, and the regu- 
lar service generally in such warfare, that no response was made to the call. 
St. Clair was bedfast with gout and rheumatism, was an imbecile with dis- 
ease, age, and inexperience in such campaigning, and was then unfit to lead 



DISASTROUS DEFEAT OF THE ARMY. 309 

an army in any campaign. Why the sagacity and well-known experience 

of President Washington would sanction or tolerate an appointment, that 

foreboded disaster in the discontent of the troops and the general murmur 

of protest throughout the country, is an enigma of history which the author 

<ioes not attempt to explain. The novel expedient of drafting one thousand 

" men for the army was resorted to in Kentucky ; but no general officer could 

]' be found who would accept the command of these enforced recruits, and 

j this was finally given to Colonel Oldham. ^ 

! About the ist of October, 1791, the army of over two thousand men, well 
^ armed and provisioned, which had rendezvoused at Fort Washington, now 
Cincinnati, began its march, by way of Fort Hamilton, on the Big Miami, 
toward the Indian towns on the Maumee river. The march was slow and 
' wearisome to frontiersmen, as it was conducted after the ordinary routine 
'' of military science. Forts and stations were constructed on the route for 
storage of supplies, and for protection in case of disaster; the roads needed 
to be repaired for the passage of the artillery, and all had to move to the 
' order of military precision. The army was officered by brave and tried 
•subordinates, but the volunteer material was of a very mixed and doubtful 
' -element of the refuse of the States where they were enlisted. It was the 
' most formidable force and equipment ever sent against the North-west In- 
dians. The Kentucky conscripts did not conceal their disaffection from the 
iirst, and hints of another Braddock's or Harmar's disaster were murmured. 
" They began their desertions by individuals, and then by squads. Finally, a 
large part of a battalion followed, when the general detached a regiment to 
bring back the deserters. 

On the 3d of November, the army came to a village on a small tributary 
of the Wabash, which St. Clair mistook for the St. Mary's, a branch of the 
Maumee, and here encamped in two lines, with the creek in front. The 
' right wing was composed of Butler's, Clark's, and Patterson's battalions, 
commanded by Major-General Butler, forming the first line; and the left 
wing, of Bedinger's and Gaither's battalions and Colonel Darke's regiment, 
forming the second line. The right flank was protected by the steep bank 
of the creek and Faulkner's corps; some of the cavalry and their pickets 
covered the left. The militia were thrown over the creek some five hundred 
yards, and encamped in the same order, in front of which a company of 
regulars was picketed. 

Near sunrise on the 4th, the enemy, in strong force, attacked the militia, 
the picket company having fallen back and given information to General 
Butler of the advance of the Indians, who treated the report as unworthy 
' of attention, most fatally. Colonel Oldham had disregarded the regular 
^ orders to put out scouts, to keep advised of any movements of the enemy. 
The morning call and parade were over; and the troops, dismissed, had laid 
•aside their arms, when suddenly a horde of Indians dashed into the militia 

I Marshall, Vol. I., pp. 377-387. 



3IO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

camp, and completely routed them. In a stampede, they ran back upon 
Butler's and Clark's lines, and created some disorder. The Indians hotly 
pursuing, poured a reserved volley into these ranks, and increased the con- 
fusion. The officers rallied the men, and got them in some order. In quick 
succession, the savages boldly attacked the center of the front line, also the 
artillery, and the second line. Throwing themselves flat on the ground, or 
concealed by trees or logs, they kept up a galling fire, especially upon the 
artillery. The troops responded with small arms and artillery, but with not 
very destructive effect. The camp was now surrounded, and the slaughter 
was great at every point. The soldiers began to be disheartened, and then 
disordered, though the officers bravely rallied them. The savages charged 
into the camp with brandished tomahawks, and were driven out with the 
bayonet. Again they charged, and yelled, and fought desperately. Many 
officers and men had fallen, among them General Butler, second in com- 
mand. St. Clair was helpless in his cot. No quarter was given or expected. 
A retreat or a general massacre was now inevitable. A charge was made 
on the right of the enemy, the way cleared to the road, and then followed 
a disorderly stampede, each man caring for himself, and all deserting wag- 
ons, artillery, baggage, guns, and every encumbrance. General St. Clair 
managed to get away on a pack-horse, with aids to mount and dismount as 
he retreated. 

In four days the general reached the rendezvous, Fort Washington, with 
the main remnants of a shattered army. Rumors flew over Kentucky that 
St. Clair was besieged in Fort Jefferson and in great danger. Generals 
Scott and Wilkinson at once called for relief volunteers, who warmly re- 
sponded, ready to march on Fort Jefferson. The facts being known, these 
calls were withdrawn. Over eight hundred men, out of fourteen hundred 
engaged, fell in the carnage of this slaughter. Far more disastrous than 
Harmar's, it was paralleled only in the defeat of Braddock at DuQuesne. 
It was the fatal issue of an unbroken series of blunders. The appointment 
by the War Department of the Federal Government, the infirmities and un- 
fitness of General St. Clair, the indifference of General Butler to the report 
of the pickets, and the failure of Colonel Oldham to observe the general 
order to put out scouts in the enemy's country, betray an unmilitary disre- 
gard of discretion impossible to be apologized for. The Indian forces engaged 
were estimated at fourteen hundred, about the same as the whites. They 
■were commanded by the daring chiefs. Little Turtle and Brant. It is said 
that Little Turtle withdrew his men from pursuit, telling them that they 
had killed enough Americans. Pursuit must have ended in almost anni- 
hilation. 

General Wilkinson, who was a man yet of power and prestige in Ken- 
tucky, was honored with the commission of lieutenant-colonel in the Second 
regiment of the United States army, and placed in command of Fort Wash-j 
ington. In January, he announced the arrival of the clothing and pay of 



THE LEGISLATURE ASSEMBLES. 



3i» 



the soldiers of General St. Clair's army, which, had they come in time, might 
have saved the men a great amount of suffering and privation, and produced 
a far better state of feeling in that ill-fated body of troops. Through the 
coverts of the woods and brush which clothed the country everywhere, the 
savage bandits resumed their butcheries upon the isolated farm-houses and 
wayfarers, while piratical bands continued to decoy and assail those who 
sought the more convenient transit to Kentucky by way of the Ohio river, 
accounts of which would fill volumes. 

By the provisions of the constitutional convention at Danville, on the 
4th of June, 1792, the governor and Legislature assembled at Lexington, 

Isaac Shelby had been chosen governor by 
the college of electors ; Alexander S. Bul- 



litt, speaker of the Senate, and Robert 
Breckinridge, speaker of the House of 
Representatives. On the 6th, Governor 
Shelby met and addressed the Legisla- 
ture, in person, after the custom of the 
British monarchs, which was imitated 
by the colonial governors, and by many 
governors of the States for a long time, 
and by President Washington. James 
Brown was appointed secretary of state, 
and George Nicholas attorney -general. 
The first United States senators were 
Hons. John Brown and John Edwards. 
A joint committee of the two houses, according to order, announced that 
they had waited on the governor, and had received his reply that he would, 
the next day, at twelve o'clock, in the Senate chamber, meet the General 
Assembly, in order to make his communications. Accordingly, on the day 
appointed, the speaker and members of the House of Representatives re- 
paired to the chamber of the Senate, a little before the time for expecting 
the governor, and took the seats prepared for them, on the right front of the 
speaker's chair, the senators being on the other. At the appointed hour, 
the governor, attended by the secretary, made his appearance at the portal 
of the hall, when the speaker of the Senate, leaving his seat, met the gov- 
ernor, and conducted him to one placed on the right of the speaker's 
chair. 

After the repose of a minute, the governor arose with a manuscript in his 
hand, and respectfully addressing, first the Senate and then the House of 
Representatives, read the communication which he had ]5repared ; and de- 
hvering to each speaker a copy of the manuscript, he retired, as did also 
the speaker and members of the House of Representatives, who were re- 
formed in their own hall immediately after. Thus the first courtly proceed- 
ings of a State inaugural in Kentucky passed off. 




GOVERNOR ISAAC SHELBY. 



312 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Each house resumed its appropriate functions, and, among the first busi- 
ness, ordered the communications from the governor to be entered on the 
journals. 

In substance, they recommended to the attention of the Legislature the 
prosperity of the country as the great object of government; the establish- 
ment of both private and public credit, as among the most efficient means 
of effecting this desirable result. The first was represented to depend upon 
a speedy and impartial administration of justice, the latter on a scrupulous 
adherence to all public engagements. 

Then he successively urged the speedy adjustment of the disputed titles 
to lands, by the mode pointed out in the Constitution; the regulation of future 
elections, in such manner as to guard against undue influence ; the appoint- 
ment of two senators to represent the State in the Congress of the United 
States, and the passage of a law to compel sheriffs and other public officers 
to give security for the due performance of their duties. 

To the House of Representatives, he recommended the raising of an 
adequate revenue for public exigencies, and the appointment of commis- 
sioners to fix on a place for the permanent seat of government, giving to 
both houses his assurance of a cordial co-operation in such measures as 
should have for their object the good of the republic, and finally advising 
them to use dispatch, rendered the more necessary by the unorganized state 
of the various departments of the government. 

The first law made by the first Legislature of Kentucky was entitled, 
"An act establishing an auditor's office of public accounts." It was ap- 
proved by the governor, and became a law June 22, 1792. And thus our 
State government began by making a law for keeping straight its accounts 
of receipts and expenditures, a good omen for the fine credit our Common- 
wealth has maintained from that day to this. This first session of our 
Legislature began on Monday, June 4th, and ended on Friday, June 29, 
1792. Thomas Todd was made clerk of the House, and Buckner Thruston 
of the Senate. Rev. John Gano was made chaplain, and John Bradford 
public printer. Nicholas Lewis was appointed sergeant-at-arms to the House, 
and Roger Divine door-keeper. In the Senate, Kenneth McKoy was ap- 
pointed sergeant-at-arms, and David Johnson door-keeper. 

Tliere was great jealousy and contention over the selection of a seat of 
government, as provided for in the Constitution, between the people on the 
north and south sides of the Kentucky river. The appointment of commis- 
sioners was by the selection of twenty-one persons distributed over the 
State, from whom the delegations from Mercer and Fayette, alternately, 
struck off one, until five gentlemen were left. These were Robert Todd, 
John Edwards, John Allen, Henry Lee, and Thomas Kennedy, any three 
of whom might fix the seat of government. A majority decided on Frank- 
fort, and this place became the capital. A state-house of stone, uncouth 
enough, was soon erected to accommodate the Legislature, paid for princi- 



ADAIR AND PARTY ATTACKED BY INDIANS. 313 

pally out of private means. An edifice of brick was built for the governor's 
use, at the expense of the State. 

The assembly proceeded to organize the judiciary of the Commonwealth. 
The Court of Appeals was constituted of three judges — Harry Innes as chief- 
justice, and Benjamin Sebastian and Caleb Wallace second and third judges. 
Innes, declining, was appointed United States district judge, and George 
Muter was commissioned to fill the appellate vacancy. Subordinate to this, 
county courts were provided for, composed of justices of the different coun- 
ties, any two of whom, out of three appointed, were to constitute a court 
of quarterly sessions, and any other two a county court. The justices had 
jurisdiction of all cases of less value than five pounds sterling, or one thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco. If the judgment was for less than half the amounts 
named, they were final; if over, an appeal lay to the quarterly sessions. 
The jurisdiction of the latter extended to all cases at common law and 
chancery, excepting criminal cases involving life or limb. The criminal 
jurisdiction was exercised by one court called the Court of Oyer and Term- 
iner, held twice a year by three judges, from whose decisions there was 
neither appeal nor writ of error. 

The members of the assembly received one dollar per diem, and twelve 
dollars extra for the session, or twenty dollars each to the presiding officers. 
The clerk was paid fifty dollars, and the sergeant-at-arms twelve dollars, 
*^ in full of all demands.'^ The treasury department was organized by the 
appointment of an auditor and treasurer. There being no money in the 
treasury, as no revenue had been collected, the treasurer was ordered to 
borrow. The great scarcity of money, its enhanced purchasing value, and 
the simplicity of habits brought the wage standard then to a corresponding 
level. 

To give an idea of the market prices of the times, beef was two cents 
per pound; .buffalo meat, one and a half cents; venison, one and a quar- 
ter; butter, eight cents; turkeys, fifteen cents each; potatoes, fifty cents per 
barrel; flour, five dollars per barrel; whisky, fifty cents per gallon. Mar- 
keting was not an established business ; the stuffs were peddled around by 
such as had a surplus, but each man usually supplied his own meat from the 
woods. 

On the 6th of November, 1792, Major John Adair, in command of one 
hundred Kentuckians, was attacked by a large body of Indians under Little 
Turtle, at a camp near Fort St. Clair, on a line of defense north from Fort 
Washington. After a severe contest, in which the Indians were several 
times repulsed, only to rally again with re-enforced strength. Major Adair 
was forced to retreat, with the loss of six killed, the camp equipage, and 
one hundred and forty pack-horses. The enemy were too badly punished 
to pursue, and were content to retire with their booty. Their losses in killed 
and wounded were much in excess of the whites, as seven of their dead 
were counted on the field when driven back by the whites. General Wil- 



314 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

kinson publicly complimented the steadiness and gallantry of the major and 
his men, in the face of superior numbers. 

1 Toward the close of the year, the hearts of many were saddened by 
the intelligence of the death of the brave Colonel John Hardin and Major 
Trueman. They had been selected by General Wilkinson to proceed on a 
mission to the Miami towns, with a view to confer with the Indians upon 
the question of negotiations for a peace treaty. They had proceeded to the 
vicinity of the towns, and arrived at an Indian camp, about a day's journey 
from where Fort Defiance was built afterward on the Maumee. They were 
well received in camp by the Indians, who showed their usual respect for 
messengers of peace. After their arrival some time, five Delawares came 
from their town, about thirty miles off. Colonel Hardin proposed to visit 
their town with them that evening, but they refused. They encamped to- 
gether that night, seemingly in a friendly spirit. Next morning, they became 
much excited over some inquiries made by the white party in reference to- 
the country. The counsels of the ferocious prevailed, and Colonel Hardin 
was murdered on the spot. His companion was escorted toward Sandusky,, 
and assassinated on the road. When the news came to the Indian towns, 
that a white man with a peace talk was killed, it excited passionate indigna- 
tion, and brought much censure upon the perpetrators of the treacherous- 
and cowardly deed; a waste of cheap sentiment that offered little consola- 
tion to Kentuckians for the butchery in cold blood of beloved comrades. 

Pending these crucial trials and mishaps, which continued to vex the 
souls of the Western people, there were those among their fellow-citizens 
of the Eastern States who dwelt in the repose of security, and prospered 
amid the happy fruitages of peace; and yet most diligently engaged in dis- 
seminating the self-excusing hypothesis, that these continued hostilities in 
the West were provoked and kept alive by the aggressive cruelties and out- 
lawry of the Americans; and that the poor Indians were indeed persecuted, 
murdered, and outraged beyond all forbearance. Hence, the latter were 
goaded to retaliation and self defense. Maudlin sentiment from the pulpit, 
ill-advised comments by the press, and cheap harangues by demagogues^ 
had given enough importance to this misleading and mischievous philan- 
thropy, on the part of a specious class in the communities, to call for some 
attention on the part of the General Government. 

We will be pardoned a brief digression here to notice this symptom of 
a distempered or affected humanitarianism, which has manifested itself in 
every age toward the forlorn red barbarians, with whom our country has had 
to deal, and has to deal now. Millions at a distance believe that the poor 
Indian out West is a victim to the persecutions and aggressive wrongs of 
the American invader of his territory and his rights; and that all the red 
man needs, to be innocent and good, is to be let alone, or treated well, by 
his white neighbor. In this conclusion, and in this sentiment, there are 

I Collins, Vol, II., p. 316; Marshall, Vol. I. 



li 



INDIANS THE MODERN OUTLAWS. 315 

none of the frontiersmen who have had to deal with the savages, to mourn 
their butcheries and atrocities, to engage in hostiHties with them, and who 
knew them and their natures thoroughly, who will be found to share. They 
only know them, as we know all barbarians who have fallen farther away in 
their apostasy from all original virtue than any other living beings, as fero- 
cious, treacherous, and deceitful creatures of impulse and passion. In their 
brutal natures and instincts, there is no more scruple to murder, steal, or 
lie, than there is to eat their venison or smoke their pipes. As to suscepti- 
bility to a moral sense of wrong, that will make them amenable to conscience 
and restrain their evil inclinations for conscience sake, they evince small 
possession of it. They seem, in their aboriginal estate, to act. only from 
an impulse of present gratification, or from a sense of fear, in their general 
habits. 

The. Indian is the modern type, but the same apostate outlaw against 
divine and moral government as were the antediluvians, the Sodomites 
and the Canaanites, whose national existence God decreed should be exter- 
minated. The law of such extermination was given in the words, "when 
their iniquity shall be full." The same law of God is in active force yet, 
and will be in all time; only, the execution of the first was by the agency 
of miracle, while since, the execution is by the natural laws of cause and 
effect, the agencies of providence ever presided over and directed by the 
unseen hand of God Himself. An apostate nation, whose "iniquity is full," 
is one that has obliterated the idea of the true God, and of responsibility to 
Him, from their minds and practices ; and hence, have aborted the purposes 
of Deity who created and gave them national existence. It is His wise 
decree, for the defense and safety of better nations and peoples, that such 
should be fiationally exterminated. 

Such decree does not presuppose that there shall be no individual excep- 
tions in such national exterminations. Indeed, the reverse is shown. None 
of the ancient nations named were destroyed without warning, and a way 
of escape for the virtuous. It is the national or tribal existence of the In- 
dian that is fated for destruction. It is of the genius of our civilization and 
of our political institutions, that every individual of these tribes, whom it 
may be possible to save out of such tribal extinctions, should have the door 
of escape held wide open. 

The Government has ever unwisely and unhappily reversed this divine 
order, in its treaties and policies with the red men. It has conceded to 
them independent tribal or national existence and territorial rights within 
our own national domain and jurisdiction, which it has done to no other 
people. Had it pursued the other policy of ignoring, or requiring a forfeit- 
ure of tribal existence, and given to each household or head a homestead 
of land, inalienable for a generation or two, and required the Indians to be- 
come industrious and law-abiding citizens, or to take the consequences of 
individual outlawry, the majority of them might have become assimilated. 



3l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

and incorporated into the body politic. It is the recognition and concession 
of their tribal organizations and identity by the Government, that so long 
repeated and perpetuated savage hostilities, and that entail the main ex- 
penses of our military establishment to this date. 

It is fairly estimated that for one hundred years, there have been slain 
by Indians, as many Avhite men, women, and children, as there are red men 
within the jurisdiction of the United States. Ten years ago, the statement 
was made and not questioned, that on the route from Santa Fe, New Mex- 
ico, to Tucson, Arizona, a distance of four hundred miles, the remains and 
burial spots of six hundred persons murdered by Apaches could be identi- 
fied. It may be safely asserted that not less than five thousand men, women, 
and children fell victims to the fire-arms, the tomahawk, and scalping-knife 
of these barbarians during the pioneer days, in Kentucky. Their tribal ex- 
termination is fated and is but a question of time. 

The policy of the Government has ever been in direct contravention of 
the divine order. The latter is just and humane, in that it destroys the 
tribal body that is utterly apostate and corrupt, and saves the individuals by 
incorporation into a better national life and body. The former is inhumane 
and cruel in the end, in that it seeks to perpetuate a depraved and prosti- 
tuted national or tribal existence; and in so doing fatally determines and 
perpetuates the barbarisms of the individual. It assures the gradual de- 
struction of the tribe, by the certain and more rapid destruction of its 
vicious and depraved individuals. It would have been absurd and unwise, 
had our Government provided for the distinct existence of a German nation, 
an Irish nation, an African nation, or a French or Italian tribe, out of the 
crude and diverse elements of our immigration, within its own body — politic 
and territorial ; but not more absurd and not more destructive of peace, 
good order, and prosperity, than the perpetuation of the tribal unity and 
distinction conceded to the Indians. 

^ An authority who made a special study and investigation of this subject, 
a few years ago, shows that the Government pays out treaty annuities to 
the domesticated tribes, numbering an aggregate of less than two hundred 
thousand souls, six millions annually for their support, and an average of 
twenty-four millions more each year, in military equipment and expendi- 
tures, to police them into civil order and subordination. Besides this worse 
than waste of thirty millions annually, there are, in the aggregate, nearly 
two hundred millions of acres of choice lands set apart for these wild Arabs 
of the Occident, from which white settlers are interdicted; or an area of 
territory as large as Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 
One-tenth of this territory would give to each head of an Indian family, or 
male adult, enough for a choice farm of five hundred acres, instead of five 
thousand to roam over in majestic seclusion and impudent deviltry, as now. 
This phenomenal policy brings about the singular anomaly of the existence 

I L. D. Ingersoll, National Magazine, February, 1875. 



FORBIDDEN HOSTILITIES WITH THE SAVAGES. 317 

within our national domain, of some two hundred distinct "nationalities,"' 
each based upon distinct treaty stipulations, and each with its own peculiar 
characteristics. 

It would be as unjust and untrue to say of the Indian, that he can not be 
civilized and assimilated into the body-politic of a good government, as it 
would be to say the same of the African. The benign and subduing influ- 
ence of our Christianized civilization, with its potential agencies of light 
and love, finds nothing unconquerable in the wide world of human apostacy 
and depravity. The redeemed and restored African and Indian, while they 
may stand with the minority, are living indices pointing to the possibilities 
of our civilization, with the emphasis of demonstration. If all the inge- 
nuity of statecraft had been combined and concerted for the past century 
to formulate and enforce an Indian policy, the most mischievous, unkind, 
and pernicious, to the red man first, and to the white man also, it would 
not have better cause to-day to crown its authorship with the well-earned 
laurels of success, than is due the policy pursued. 

The president, to counteract the pernicious impression which possessed 
the minds of the people of the Atlantic States, and also that the Indians, 
were willing to listen to and accept terms of peace on just grounds, ordered 
a treaty council to be held at Sandusky. In the meantime, all citizens were 
forbidden to engage in any hostilities with the savages, a very painful and 
hard necessity laid on the Kentuckians after the many recent and distress- 
ing barbarities perpetrated on them. 

On this state of affairs, Butler very pertinently remarks : ^ " Nor can the 
necessity of this action of the president be appreciated without attentively 
noticing the deep-rooted prejudices of the country at large on the subject 
of Indian hostilities. They showed themselves in the debates of Congress, 
and were too much confirmed by the history of the national intercourse with 
the aborigines in general. Sympathy with the interests of a race of men in- 
compatible with the existence of our agricultural people seems to have 
occupied the people east of the mountains ^vhen it had no longei- room tO' 
opei-ate against' themselves. No thought then seemed to exist that the same 
causes of inconsistent states of social existence prevailed on the western 
side of the mountains, just as they had presented themselves on their east- 
ern side for the preceding century and a half. Our people would have 
gladly abided, for the present, with the territorial limit of the Ohio river. 
But no territorial limit could permanently arrest the ruin of the one race or 
the progress of the other. The decree of their fate was passed by natural 
causes which no human exertions could counteract." 

The commissioners appointed by the president of the United States 
now announced that the Indians would not form a treaty of peace. The 
sincere and persevering benevolence of the Government was vindicated^ 
and the rest was left to the fate of arms. General Wayne, who had assem- 

I Butler, p. 221. 



3l8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

bled his troops at Fort Washington, received orders early in October, 1793, 
to commence his march toward the Maumee. In pursuance of his author- 
ity, he had called upon the government of Kentucky for a detachment of 
mounted volunteers. These, so deep was the dislike and the want of con- 
fidence in regular troops among the militia of Kentucky, after the disasters 
of Harmar and St. Clair, could not be obtained by volunteering. On the 
28th of September, the governor of Kentucky had been compelled by this 
reluctance to order a draft from the militia. The necessary re-enforcement 
was obtained, and by the 24th of October, General Scott, at the head of 
one thousand mounted men from Kentucky, reached within four miles 
of headquarters, then six miles in advance of Fort Jefferson and eighty 
miles from the Ohio river. Here the troops rested for several days. The 
Indians were now known to be in great force in the neighborhood of the 
Miami villages, eagerly anticipating another destructive victory over their 
white enemies. The season was far advanced in a rigorous climate, and 
the army not too well prepared for the stern and trying conflict with savages 
more flushed with confidence of conquest than they had ever been. This 
was the first campaign the army had prosecuted in the woods. In consid- 
eration of these united difficulties, the general-in-chief most prudently deter- 
mined to suspend his march and to build Fort Greenville. The regular 
troops now entered into winter quarters, and the Kentucky militia were 
dismissed, not unpleasantly, though with renewed confidence in regular 
forces, owing to the energy and the hardihood displayed by General Wayne. 

Early in 1793, the contagion of French attachment manifested itself 
in the United States by the establishment of the Democratic Society in 
Philadelphia, in too close imitation of the disorganizing clubs which had 
disseminated anarchy and destruction throughout the beautiful kingdom of 
France. Not that the partialities of our countrymen for Frenchmen, or 
their sympathy with the fortunes of France, are to be confounded with the 
crimes against all social order which deformed the French revolution. 
Many of these they did not know, and much they did not credit, coming as 
it did through English channels, a source of information doubly suspicious 
to our countrymen, at the time, from the hostilities of England against 
France, and likewise from her exasperating policy toward the United States. 

England was cordially hated by the people of Kentucky, who knew 
that it was her treacherous hand that raised the Indian tomahawk against 
them and their defenseless women and children. To this was to be added 
the no less agitating sentiment of national gratitude for the people who so 
signally befriended us in the hour of our greatest peril and need. Many of 
the Revolutionary officers who had removed to Kentucky, as Scott, Hardin, 
Anderson, Croghan, Shelby, and Clark, with numerous followers, had fought 
side by side with the French in our own armies, and together agamst the 
British and their auxiliaries, the savages. Out of this state of public senti- 
ment. Democratic societies were readily established at Georgetown, Paris, 



FRANCE ASKING ASSISTANCE. 319 

and Lexington, on the model of the one at Philadelphia, and all after the 

' model of the Jacobin clubs of Europe. The French revolution, a volcano 
lit by the torch of Republicanism carried back to Europe from the flames 

' of American liberty, was in its first stage of eruption, and was shaking the 
thrones and establishments of that continent with its ominous vibrations. 
The outbreak in 1793 was yet kept within the legitimate bounds of the right 

' 4)f 1-evolution. It had not committed any of those excesses of brutality 
which finally set all virtuous sentiment against it throughout the world. It 

. was a remarkable phenomenon to witness the effect of the political changes 
in Europe on the people of the Western wilderness, so remote and isolated. 
Eut they hailed the advent of the French revolution with open enthusiasm. 
They believed it the precursor to the general downfall of monarchical gov- 
ernments and the erection of republics upon their ruins. Again, the senti- 
ment of Kentucky was strongly anti-Federal, believing, as the people did, 
that Federal usurpation was tending to the establishment of an aristocratic 
government at home, and to endanger the individual rights of the States. 
Their ideas were doubtless exaggerated on this latter subject, but they served 
to enlist prejudice even against the administration of the peerless Washing- 
ton, These Democratic clubs would ask of the Government that it confine 
its acts and jurisdiction within the strict letter of the Federal Constitution. 
They ventured further in demanding, what they conceived to be, those 
rights which the Government should guarantee to one section as to another. 

' The society at Lexington gave vent to their wishes in the violent resolu- 
tion, "That the right of the people on the waters of the Mississippi to the 
navigation thereof was undoubted, and that it ought to be pet'etnptorily de- 
manded of Spain by the Government of the United States." It must be 
borne in mind by the reader in this connection, that the monarchy of Spain 
was in league with England and the other monarchies of Europe, in a mighty 
effort to extinguish the Titanic struggle for popular government in Demo- 
cratic France. It was all Europe against France, and France in a life-and- 
death contest to secure for herself that liberty she had so grandly fought to 
secure for the Americans. The Democrats of the Occident were intoxicated 

; with the mirage of freedom which appeared in the East. 

The ardent and grateful friends of France now reminded the Govern- 
ment that the colonies, when treating with her for assistance in the extremity 

i > of their need during the war with the mother country, consented to make war 
on England whenever the French Government did. Now, nearly twenty years 
after, when called on to carry out that dangerous stipulation, the Federal 
Government, under the lead of the prudent Washington, very wisely de- 
clined to keep the contract which a predecessor had made, and under cir- 
cumstances altogether different from those considered in the treaty. The 
fathers had bargained to pay a tribute of indemnity, which, though named 
in the bond, the sons dared not liquidate. The stipulation was more an im- 
pulse of sentimental diplomacy than of international obligation. 



320 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The further relation of the history of this interesting episode is lucidly 
given by Butler : 

1 " In this state of public feeling, the French minister, Genet, about the 
ist of November, 1793, sent four persons of the names of Le Chase, Charles 
Delpeau, Mathurian, and Gignoux, to Kentucky, with orders to engage 
men in an expedition against New Orleans and the Spanish possessions. 
For this purpose, they carried with them blank commissions. The governor 
was soon afterward informed by the secretary of state of this enterprise, and 
2 ' that the special interests of Kentucky would be particularly committed by 
such an attempt, as nothing could be more inauspicious to them than such 
a movement, at the very moment those interests were under negotiation 
between Spain and the United States.' 

" Such, however, was the excitement of the public mind on the subject of 
the Mississippi, added to its fevered condition in regard to French politics, 
that too many persons were ready to embrace those foreign proposals to 
embroil the peace of the United States. Two of these emissaries had the 
audacity to address letters to the governor, informing him in express terms 
of their intention ' to join the expedition of the Mississippi,' and requesting 
to be informed whether he had 'positive orders to arrest all citizens inclining 
to our assistance.' To this presumptuous letter of Delpeau, Governor 
Shelby condescended to reply, in the words of the secretary of. state, that 
he had been charged to 'take those legal measures necessary to prevent any 
such enterprise, to which charge I must pay that attention which my present 
situation obliges me.' These foreign agents proceeded in their piratical 
attempt, from the bosom of a neutral and friendly nation, to raise two thou- 
sand men under French authority, and to distribute French commissions 
among the citizens of Kentucky, to purchase cannon, powder, boats, and 
whatever was deemed necessary for a formidable expedition. In an un- 
guarded moment, these insinuating agents, influenced by the same mis- 
chievous spirit that had undermined the peace and independence of so 
many European states, subordinated the exalted patriotism and fidelity of 
General George Rogers Clark, and prevailed upon him to take command of 
the expedition, as * a major-general in the armies of France, and commander- 
in-chief of the revolutionary legions on the Mississippi.' Under this omi- 
nous entitlement for an American officer, he issued, under his own name, 
proposals 'for volunteers for the reduction of the Spanish forts on the 
Mississippi, for opening the trade of that river, and giving freedom to its 
inhabitants. All persons serving on the expedition will be entitled to one 
thousand acres of land- those that engage for one year will be entitled to 
two thousand ; if they serve three years, or, during the present war with 
France, they will have three thousand acres of any unappropriated land that 
may be conquered, the officers in proportion as other French troops, all 
lawful plunder to be equally divided, according to the custom of war; those 

I Butler, p. 223. 2 American State Papers, pp. 2-36. 



THE PRESIDENT ISSUES A PROCLAMATION. 32 1 

who serve the expedition will have their choice of receiving their lands or 

one dollar per day.' 

"Governor St. Clair intimated to Governor Shelby, early in November, 

that this commission had been given to Clark. This communication was 
1 followed by one from General Wayne, of January 6, 1794, inclosing his 
: orders to Major W. Winston, commanding the United States cavalry in 
, Kentucky, which placed that ofificer and his men under the orders of Gov- 
I ernor Shelby, and promised that, 'should more force be wanted, it should 
> not be withheld, notwithstanding our proximity to the combined force of 
I hostile Indians.' After the receipt of these letters. Governor Shelby ad- 
( dressed the Federal secretary of state, on the 13th of January, 1794, and, 

after acknowledging the receipt of the information in regard to Clark and 
; the French emissaries, proceeded as follows: 

" ' I have great doubts, even if General Clark and the Frenchmen attempt 
: to carry this plan into execution, provided they manage their business with 
; prudence, whether there is any legal authority to restrain or to punish them, at 
= least before they have actually accomplished it. For if it is lawful for any one 
r citizen of the State to leave it, it is equally so for any number of them to 
. do it. It is also lawful for them to carry any quantity of provisions, arms, 
] and ammunition. And if the act is lawful in itself, there is nothing but the 
3 particular intention with which it is done that can possibly make it unlawful ; 
f. but I know of no law which inflicts a punishment on intention only, or any 
i, criterion by which to decide what would be sufficient evidence of that inten- 
i tion, even if it was a proper subject of legal censure.' 

L "This communication precluding any effectual interposition on the part 
? of the governor of Kentucky, the president of the United States issued his 
\ proclamation, on the 24th of March, apprising the people of the West of 
P the unlawful project, and warning them of the consequences of engaging 

- in it. About the same time. General Wayne was ordered to establish a 
: strong military post at Fort Massac, on the lower Ohio, and to prevent by 
'; force, if necessary, the descent of any hostile party down that river." 

T It was most evidently not the province or duty of Governor Shelby to 

- interpose the State authority in a matter that concerned the Federal Govern- 
. ment alone. Though his political enemies charged that he was conniving 

with the French party, his view, that the suppression of the military move- 
ment on Spanish Louisiana was a matter beyond the limited jurisdiction of 

- the State government, was certainly tenable. As an individual. Governor 
1 Shelby no doubt sympathized with the almost universal sentiment of his 

people, in favor of opening the navigation of the Mississippi to all. 

In his letter to the secretary of state, of 13th of January, in bold words, 
) he continues: ^ " Much less would I assume a power to exercise it against 

Frenchmen, whom I consider as friends and brethren, in favor of the Span- 
^ iard, whom I view as an enemy and a tyrant. I shall also feel but little in- 

I Butler, p. 232. 



32 2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

clination to take an active part in punishing or restraining any of my fellow- 
citizens for a supposed intention only, to gratify the fears of the minister of 
a prince, who openly withholds from us an invaluable right ; or one who se- 
cretly instigates against us a most savage and cruel enemy. Yet, whatever 
may be my private opinions as a man, a friend to liberty, an American citi- 
zen, and an inhabitant of the Western waters, I shall at all times hold it as 
my duty to perform whatever may be constitutionally required of me as 
governor of Kentucky, by the president of the United States." 

In March, the secretary of state, Edmund Randolph, replied to this 
letter of the governor's, and endeavored to confute the legal difficulties 
which had embarrassed his mind. ^ He then assures him the negotiations 
at Madrid, respecting the navigation of the Mississippi river, had been under 
consideration since the first verbal overtures of Spain in December, 1791, 
which had been accepted by the president; and that Mr. Short had been 
associated with Mr. Carmichael, the charge d' affairs at Madrid, in the ne- 
gotiation; that for many months the commissioners had been employed in 
this important affair at the Spanish capital, and were so employed yet. 
Though necessary forms had enforced delay, and the events of Europe, and 
other considerations, had presented embarrassments, yet there was expecta- 
tion of a satisfactory result. 

Persistently, actively, and steadily, the agents of the French Government 
and the veteran pioneer leaders who were commissioned by them pursued 
the work of raising, organizing, and equipping the army of two thousand 
men, to man a flotilla for a descent upon New Orleans, the Spanish provin- 
cial capital. The best of fighting men were not wanting, and the notes of 
busy preparation echoed throughout the land. 

Citizen Genet, the ambassador of the French republic, had landed in 
Charleston in the spring of 1793, and was received with demonstrations of 
enthusiasm that seemed to have elated him beyond all discretion. His 
progress through the Atlantic States to New York was characterized by 
scenes befitting the triumphal march of a Roman conqueror. Treating with 
contempt the president's proclamation of neutrality, he proceeded openly 
to arm and equip privateers, and to enlist crews in American ports for ves- 
sels to war upon the commerce of England and Spain, as though the United 
States were an ally, and sanctioned the authority. 

All Europe beheld with dismay the fire, and cloud, and shock of the 
great political volcano that poured its desolating lava from the Parisian cen- 
ter, over its most distant countries and capitals. The contagion of excite- 
ment spread its ominous influences throughout America, to be viewed with 
alarm by our government; to be hailed with delirious joy by the over-san- 
guine democracy, that had not yet learned to distinguish its own love of 
liberty and order from the unchastened and untamed licentiousness of Jaco- 
binism. The impatient and dangerous sympathy, heedless of the warning 

I Marshall, Vol. II., p. 150. 



GENET IS RECALLED. 323 

proclamations of Washington, distilled its poison throughout the States. Only 
the fortunate distance and the intervening ocean held Americans in check. 

Nowhere did it blaze forth with more intensity than in Kentucky, for her 
people had an aim and an interest; while her remoteness made this the most 
available theater of active operations. The clubs resorted to every method 
of arousing the people, aided by the invectives of the press. In the spring 
of 1794, a meeting was called at Lexington, where violent resolutions were 
adopted, breathing the deepest hostility to the administration, and inviting 
a future convention of delegates to be appointed in citizens' meetings in the 
several counties, which more than hinted in the old direction of separation. 

Fortunately, about this time, the intelligence came that Genet had been 
recalled, at the earnest instance of our own Government, and all his acts 
disavowed by the French republic. Thus disrobed of authority, and their 
military commissions rendered null and void, the French agents abandoned 
further efforts in the State. In consequence, the whole scheme of an expe- 
dition against New Orleans, which had tempted the allegiance of Kentuck- 
ians, vanished into thin air. The collapse had come. On the 14th of May 
La Chaise informed the Lexington club: "That unforeseen events had 
stopped the march of two thousand brave Kentuckians to go, by the 
strength of their arms, and take from the Spaniards the empire of the Missis- 
sippi, insure to their country the navigation of it, break the chains of the 
Americans and their brethren, the French, and lay the foundations of the 
prosperity and happiness of two great nations, destined by nature to be 
one." 

Of this period of intense political agitation throughout the world, a dis- 
tinguished writer says : " Nowhere did it rise to a higher degree than among 
the ardent and excitable people of Kentucky. The adventurous spirit and 
energetic stamp of a conquering and emigrating people communicate them- 
selves to the general character, and are displayed in the general deportment." 
This may, in part, be a solution of the overflowing ardor and abounding 
energy, which are so prominently exhibited in Kentuckians, and which still 
mark the descendants of that daring body of men, who conquered the fa- 
vorite of all the hunting-grounds of the Indians. In addition to this, a 
large body of Revolutionary officers and soldiers had settled in Kentucky, 
and, no doubt, increased the military impulse. How mistaken and ill- 
directed, and how ill requited was all this enthusiasm of Americans for 
French interests need not now be detailed. 

1 Of General Isaac Shelby, who, as governor of Kentucky, has been 
brought into prominence in our history, the reader will demand more than 
the passing mention. Few prominent characters in the military and political 
events of his day, both continental and local, evinced more decision and 
ability than he. Born and reared in Maryland, in early manhood North 
Carolina became the State of his first adoption. Following the early inclina- 

I Collins, Vol. IL, p. 71a. 



324 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



tion of his nature for military life, he tendered his offices to General Lewis, 
of Virginia, and rendered brilliant service at the great and decisive battle 
of Point Pleasant, with the confederated forces of the Miami tribes, an 
action before mentioned in this history. Afterward, in North Carolina, he 
rendered most efficient service during the Revolutionary war in many minor 
expeditions, but especially in retrieving the disaster of Gates, at Camden, 
the effect of which cast a gloom over the Southern country. That which 
seemed to paralyze others only awakened a spirit of greater resolve in 
Shelby, and to develop the superior military power which distinguished his- 
after life. Holding together the little army he then commanded, he secured 
a large number of prisoners in his hands by a swift movement to the shelter 
of the Blue Ridge mountains. At this time, the noted Ferguson was 
spreading terror among the people of that district of North Carolina, hardly- 
dreaming of serious opposition. It was mainly the genius of Shelby that 
conceived and planned, and his energy and determination that rallied and 
led, the forces at the battle of King's mountain, where victory gave new in- 
spiration to the patriot population, although in subordinate command. He 
rendered signal service at the battle of Cowpens, and was ever in the front 
of that active campaigning, in his adopted State, against the English and 
Tories, which formed one of the most exciting episodes of the war of the' 
Revolution. 

At the conclusion of peace in 1783, he removed to Kentucky, and soon 
won the confidence and sympathy of her impulsive people. He became at 
once prominent in the political and military affairs of the State. He was 
notably gifted with a penetrating and sagacious statesmanship, which, to- 
gether with his military ability and experience, gave him an influence in the 
State second to that of no other citizen. His independence of mind and 
speech, and his personal bravery, endeared him to a people who especially 
admired those manly qualities. He strongly sympathized with the party 
that contended so earnestly, and, at times, threateningly, for the full and 
equal recognition of rights for the Western people in the policies of the 
General Government. Yet no man was more devoted to the principles 
upon which the republic was based, or more loyal to the authorities who 
with equality and justice, administered the government of the same. 

We left General Wayne in headquarters at Greenville, in the fall of 
1793. During the winter, he reoccupied the battle-ground of St. Clair, and 
there erected Fort Recovery. ^ The British agents not only continued to 
supply the Indians with arms and munitions, and to instigate them to im- 
''placable hostilities, but themselves resorted to open and flagrant outrages, 
that under other conditions would have been a justifiable cause of war. 

2 On the loth of February, Lord Dorchester, governor-general of Can- 
ada, in a speech before an assemblage of tribes at Quebec, declared to them 

1 Marshall, Vol. II., pp. 137-9 I Butler, p. 235. 

2 American State Papers, Vol. II., pp. 65-73. 



CONFIDENCE IN GENERAL WAYNE. 325 

that "he should not be surprised if Great Britain and the United States 
were at war in the course of the year, and, if so, a line must be drawn by 
the warriors." Yet holding Detroit, ten years after the treaty of peace, in 
the same hostile spirit. Governor Simcoe established a military post below 
the rapids of the Maumee, about fifty miles south of that fort. Against the 
remonstrance of the Government, he refused to withdraw the garrison, the 
British minister seeking to justify the insult. 

Under these encouragements, and secretly supplied with British arms, a 
i large body of Indians attacked Fort Recovery in July, who, after an assault 
of twenty-four hours, were driven off, with a loss of less than one hundred 
killed and wounded. 

The brief experience of the Kentuckians with General Wayne in the 
partial campaign of the autumn of 1793 ^^^ wrought a revolution in their 
sentiments in his favor. On the return home of General Scott, on fur- 
lough, with his one thousand drafted troops, they all bore testimony to the 
military ability, as well as the gallantry and dash, of General Wayne, or 
. *' Mad Anthony," as he was known by the sobriquet given him for daring 
courage in the Revolutionary war. With confidence established. General 
„ Scott reported with sixteen hundred Kentucky militia, on the 26th of 
July, and united his forces with about the same number of regulars under 
the commanding general. The army commenced its march to the junction 
, of the Au Glaize and Maumee rivers, with the intention of surprising the 
rich and extensive Indian towns there. But warned of his approach by a 
deserter, he found the enemy had fted. Destroying the crops, General 
, Wayne continued his march down the Maumee on the same side on which 
i the British had recently built the new fort, in the vicinity of which his scouts 
, reported the Indians to be camped in large force. Taking time to hastily 
, construct Fort Deposit, within seven miles of the British garrison, the march 
j was resumed. 

Major Price, who commanded the advance guard, sent back word to 
, General Wayne that the enemy were in order of battle within a mile or two 
of the British fort, their left upon the Maumee, and their right extending in- 
; definitely into the thick brush-wood. 

^i The regulars were drawn up in two lines, the right resting on the Mau- 
l mee, while General Scott was ordered, with a brigade of Kentucky volun- 
- teers, on the left, to turn the extreme right of the enemy and to attack him 
. in the rear ; then General Barbee, with his brigade, was directed to follow 
close behind the second line of the regulars, to be employed as circum- 
stances might require. 

The order was given to the regulars to " advance and charge with trailed 
arms, and arouse the Indians from their coverts at the point of the bayonet, 
and, when up, to deliver a close and well-directed fire on their backs, fol- 
lowed by a brisk charge, so as not to give them time to load again, or form 
their lines." Such was the impetuosity of the charge that the Indians, and 



326 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

a lot of Canada militia and volunteers with them, were routed from their 
coverts, and driven in disorderly panic before the relentless bayonet, and 
under a destructive fire from the infantry. So general and rapid was the 
flight that, with the very best exertions he could make to overtake and 
engage the savages with his detachment of mounted men. General Scott was 
able to bring but a part of them into the action. The loss of the Indians 
was very heavy, and far out of proportion to that of the whites. The woods 
for two miles were strewed with the dead bodies of the red men and their 
white auxiliaries. The Indians, in their retreat, were surprised and dis- 
heartened that the gates of the British fort were shut against them in their 
flight. 

The army remained for three days encamped on the battle-ground, de- 
stroying all the houses, the fields of grain, and other property in reach, 
including the house and stores of Colonel McKee, the British Indian agent, 
and principal instigator of the Indians to hostilities against the Americans. 
While this work was in progress, Major Campbell, who commanded the new 
fort, addressed General Wayne to "know in what light he was to view such 
near approaches, almost in reach of the guns of a fort belonging to his 
majesty, the king of Great Britain." To this insolence. General Wayne 
replied that "were you entitled to an answer, the most full and satisfactory 
was announced to you from the muzzles of my small arms yesterday morn- 
ing, in the action against hordes of savages in the vicinity of your fort, 
which terminated gloriously for the American arms." Everything in view 
of the fort and under its guns was then destroyed. It was with difficulty 
that the commanding officer could restrain the disposition of the Kentuck- 
ians to attack the British. They tauntingly fired their rifles toward the fort 
to provoke a response, and only the discreet avoidance of retaliation on the 
part of the British commander saved them from the wrath of the exasperated 
soldiers. 

The great and decisive victory on the Maumee, together with the failure 
of their English friends to come to their relief, broke the spirit of the In- 
dians, and shortly after they were invited to a treaty meeting at Greenville, 
where terms of peace were agreed on. Large cessions of territory were 
made to the United States, and all claims south of the Ohio river given up, 
all of which was faithfully observed until the war of 1812. 

In the early summer of 1794, Captain William Whitley raised one hun- 
dred men to march against the Nicojack towns in Tennessee, from which 
repeated raids upon the settlers in that State and across the Kentucky line 
had recently been made, resulting in murders and spoliations. Crossing the 
line, he joined Colonel Orr, by appointment, who had collected up several 
hundred volunteers for the same purpose. The command was conceded to 
Whitley, though the men were mustered in under Orr's name, to entitle 
them to pay. The rendezvous was but a night's journey, but for fifteen 
miles over rough and almost pathless mountains. The aim was to surprise 






REMINISCENCES OF "BIG JOE." 327 



the enemy, and this was successfully done. An hour after sunrise, the In- 
dian town was surrounded and assailed. Fifty of the savages were killedf 
nineteen made prisoners, and the houses and property destroyed. Whitley, 
with a small detachment, set out to attack a village called Running Water, 
but was met by a large body of the enemy, and a sharp skirmish ensued, 
with the loss of several on either side, when the Indians fled. Many articles 
of plunder were recaptured, showing the guilty hostility of the red men, 
among them, clothing showing bullet-holes made by their murderous rifles. 

In April, 1793, Morgan's station, on Slate creek, seven miles from Mount 
Sterling, was assailed by a band of thirty-five Indians, and ^.aptured and 
burned. Two of the helpless whites were slain and nineteen made prison- 
ers, most of the latter being women and children, the men being absent 
attending to their crops. A party was soon raised for pursuit and recapture, 
if possible; but the Indians, finding themselves pursued, tomahawked the 
weak and helpless women and children, and managed to get away with 
the others. They were taken to the North-west and sold, but were restored 
to liberty after the treaty of Greenville, in 1795. This was the last Indian 
incursion into the interior of Kentucky. 

Raids were made into Logan county the same year, and at Bear Wallow, 
in Hart county, on the Cumberland road, three men were killed and scalped. 
Scurrying bands committed outrages at other points at different times, but not 
in large bodies. These were evidently but expiring efforts, showing that the 
prestige and power of the savages were yielding to the encroachments of 
the white men, never to be restored. The onward march of the dominant 
race was slow, but toward manifest destiny. 

About the year 1790, an individual known as "Big Joe Logston" emi- 
grated from near the source of the north branch of the Potomac to Ken- 
tucky, and resided many years in the family of Andrew Barnett, in Green 
county. He subsequently removed to Illinois. Big Joe seems to have been 
a rare and an original character, well suited for the hazards and adventures 
of pioneer life. The following account, given by Mr. Renick in the Western 
Pioneer, of a desperate fight with two Indians is characteristic: "The In- 
dians made a sudden attack, and all that escaped were driven into the rude 
fort for preservation, and, though reluctantly, Joe was one. This was a new 
life to him, and not at all congenial. He soon became very restless, and 
every day insisted on going out with others to hunt up the cattle. Knowing 
the danger better, or fearing it more, all persisted in their refusal to accom- 
pany him. To indulge his taste for the woodsman's life, he turned out 
alone, and rode till the after part of the day without finding any cattle. 
What the Indians had not killed were scared off. He concluded to return 
to the fort. Riding along a path which led in, he came to a fine vine of 
grapes. He turned into the path and rode carelessly along, eating his 
grapes, and the first intimation he had of danger was the crack of two rifles, 
one from each side of the road. One of the balls passed through the paps of 



328 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

his breast, which, for a male, were remarkably prominent. Fortunately, 
^t proved to be only a flesh wound, and did not injure the breast-bone. 
The other ball struck his horse behind the saddle, and he sunk in his tracks. 
Thus was Joe eased off his horse in a manner more rare than welcome. 
Still, he was on his feet in an instant, with his rifle in his hands, and might 
have taken to his heels, and no Indian could have caught him. That, he 
said, was not his sort. He had never left a battle-ground without leaving 
his mark, and he was resolved that that should not be the first. The moment 
the guns fired, one very athletic Indian sprang toward him, with tomahawk 
in hand. His eye was on him, and his gun to his eye, ready as soon as he 
approached near enough to make a sure shot to let him have it. As soon as 
the Indian discovered this, he jumped behind two saplings, some distance 
apart, neither of which were large enough to cover his body ; and, to save 
himself as well as he could, he kept springing from one to the other. 

"Joe, knowing he had two enemies on the ground, kept a look-out for 
the other by a quick glance of the eye. He presently discovered him be- 
hind a tree loading his gun. The tree was not quite large enough to hide 
him. When in the act of pushing down his bullet, he exposed pretty fairly 
his hips. Joe, in the twinkling of an eye, wheeled and let him have his load 
in the part so exposed. The big Indian then, with a mighty ' ugh ! ' rushed 
toward him with his raised tomahawk. Here were two warriors met, each 
determined to conquer or die — each a Goliah of his nation. The Indian 
had rather the advantage in size of frame, but Joe in weight and muscular 
strength. The Indian made a halt at the distance of fifteen or twenty feet, 
and threw his tomahawk with all his force, but Joe had his eye on him and 
dodged it. It flew quite out of the reach of either of them. Joe then 
clubbed his gun and made at the Indian, thinking to knock him down. The 
Indian sprang into some brush or saplings to avoid his blows. The savage 
depended entirely on dodging, with the help of the saplings. At length, 
Joe, thinking he had a pretty fair chance, made a side blow with such force 
that, missing the dodging Indian, the gun, now reduced to the naked barrel, 
was drawn quite out of his hands, and flew entirely out of reach. The In- 
dian now gave an exulting ' ugh ! ' and sprang at him with all the savage 
fury he was master of Neither of them had a weapon in his hands, and 
the Indian, seeing Logston bleeding freely, thought he could throw him 
down and dispatch him. In this he was mistaken. They seized each other, 
and a desperate struggle ensued. Joe could throw him down, but could not 
hold him there. The Indian being naked, with his hide oiled, had greatly 
the advantage in a ground scuffle, and would still slip out of Joe's grasp and 
rise. After throwing him five or six times, Joe found that, between loss of 
blood and violent exertions, his wind was leaving him, and that he must 
change the mode of warfare or lose his scalp, which he was not yet willing 
to spare. He threw the Indian again, and, without attempting to hold him, 
jumped from him, and as he rose, aimed a fist-blow at his head, which 



CONFIRMING JOE'S STORY. 329 

caused him to fall back, and as he would rise, Joe gave him several blows 
in succession, the Indian rising slower each time. He at length succeeded 
in giving him a pretty fair blow in the rear of the ear with all his force, 
and he fell, as Joe thought, pretty near dead. Joe jumped on him, and, 
thinking he could dispatch him by choking, grasped his neck with his left 
hand, keeping his right free for contingencies. He soon found that the 
Indian was not so dead as he thought, and that he was making some use of 
his right arm, which lay across his body, and, on casting his eye down, dis- 
•covered the savage was making an effort to unsheath a knife which was 
hanging at his belt. The knife was short, and so sunk in the sheath that it 
was necessary to force it up by pressing against the point. This the Indian 
was trying to effect, and with good success. Joe kept his eye on it, and let 
the Indian work the handle out, when he suddenly grabbed it, jerked it out 
of the sheath, and sunk it up to the handle into the Indian's breast, who 
gave a death groan and expired. 

"Joe now thought of the other Indian, and, not knowing how far he had 
succeeded in killing or crippling him, sprang to his feet. He found the 
crippled Indian had crawled some distance toward them, and had propped 
his broken back against a log and was trying to raise his gun to shoot him, 
but in attempting to do this he would fall forward, and had to push 
against his gun to raise himself again. Joe, seeing that he was safe, con- 
cluded that he had fought long enough for healthy exercise that day, and, 
not liking to be killed by a cri]jpled Indian, he made for the fort. He got 
in about nightfall, and a hard-looking case he was — blood and dirt from the 
crown of his head to the sole of his foot — no horse, no hat, no gun, with an 
account of the battle that some of his comrades could scarce believe to be 
much else than one of his big stories, in which he would sometimes indulge. 
He told them they must go and judge for themselves, 

"Next morning a company was made up to go to Joe's battle-ground. 
When they approached it, his accusers became more confirmed, as there 
was no appearance of dead Indians, and nothing Joe had talked of but the 
dead horse. They, however, found a trail as if something had been dragged 
away. On pursuing it they found the big Indian, at a little distance, beside 
a log, covered up with leaves. Still pursuing the trail, though not so plain, 
some hundred yards farther, they found the broken-backed Indian lying on 
his back with his own knife sticking up to the hilt in his body, just below 
the breast-bone, evidently to show that he had killed himself, and that he 
had not come to his end by the hand of an enemy. They had a long search 
before they found the knife with which Joe killed the big Indian. They at 
last found it forced down into the ground below the surface, apparently by 
the weight of a person's heel. This had been done by the crippled Indian. 
The great efforts he must have made, alone, in that condition, show, among 
thousands of other instances, what Indians are capable of under the great- 
est extremities." 



i 



330 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



^ During the year 1884, David Chapman, of Warren county, died at the 
age of ninety-three years. He was the first white child beUeved to have 
been born in Southern Kentucky. His father, Thomas Chapman, with sev- 
eral others, moved their families from Virginia to Kentucky, and located 
at a station on Barren river, three miles eastward from Bowling Green. A 
year after, he removed his family to a stockaded dwelling he had prepared, 
some four miles above the valley of Drake's creek. Here, every morning 
and evening, with beat of drum and shouldered rifles, he marched around 
his stockade at the head of his family. Besides himself, six sons could 
carry guns ; and his wife, daughter, and a negro woman, with hats, coats, 
and guns, joined the procession. This was kept up as long as hostile bands 
of Indians roamed and hunted through Kentucky. Every tree and shrut 
within rifle shot of the stockade, behind which an Indian could hide, was 
cleared away. Often of a morning they found the print of moccasined feet, 
showing where Indians had watched and waited through the night for some 
member of the family to show himself outside the stockade. After sunset 
no one ventured out; nor even in daylight without the trusty rifle. Fre- 
quently the cows were intercepted and driven back into the cane-brake, to 
lure some member of the family out to drive them home. One of the sons, 
Abner, was thus decoyed into an ambush. As he galloped out, with his 
gun and dogs, to drive the cows home, the dogs struck a bear-trail, as he 
thought, and he pressed on eagerly almost into the trap that had been pre- 
pared for him. The peculiar bristling of the dogs warned him just in time. 
He wheeled and put spurs to his horse. The Indians arose and fired from 
behind a bank after him. He escaped, but not unscathed. A bullet pierced 
his powder-horn, and exploded it. 

This portion of Kentucky was an extensive prairie at that time, with belts 
of timber along the creeks and rivers, and here and there a little scrub oak 
or black jack just peering above the tall grass covering the great undulating 
plain. It was called the Barrens, from the lack of forests. One spring, 
the Indians stole every horse Mr. Chapman had; and the wife and mother, 
who had shed so many tears for her old Virginia home and its white wheaten 
bread, saw starvation staring her in the face. But one day a poor foundered 
horse hobbled to the door, and Mr. Chapman took it in, as he did every- 
thing and everybody who asked shelter at his hands, made it some leather 
moccasins when it got better, and raised a crop of corn with it. 

Near his station Fleenor was killed and a comrade mortally wounded, 
the latter lingering seven weeks under the roof and care of the Chapman 
household. On another occasion, a man named Drake was hunting a mile 
or two up the creek, when Indians, by answering his turkey-call, lured him 
nigh to death. Catching a glimpse of them concealed in the cane, he turned 
and ran some distance, then up a steep bluff. They fired as he ran, but he 
did not know he was wounded until he saw the bushes sprinkled with blood 

I Courier-Journal correspondent. 



THE LAST INDIAN RAID. 33! 

as he ran up the bluff. He snatched a handful of hickory leaves and stuffed 

in the wound, and made his way to Mr. Chapman's. The ball passed 

■ clear through him, just missing his heart. The doctor drew a silk handker- 

» chief through the orifice, dressed it, and Mr. Chapman nursed him until he 

^ got well. Drake's creek was named after him. 

I The last Indian incursion into Kentucky, McDonald describes thus: 
I "In the course of the summer of 1793, the spies who had been down 
the Ohio, below Limestone, discovered where a party of about twenty In- 
) dians had crossed the Ohio, and sunk their canoes in the mouth of Holt's 

- creek. The sinking of their canoes, and concealing them, was evidence of 
i! the intention of the Indians to re-cross the Ohio at the same place. When 

Kenton received this intelligence, he dispatched a messenger to Bourbon 

- county, to apprise them that the Indians had crossed the Ohio, and had 
i: taken that direction; while he forthwith collected a small party of choice 

spirits, whom he could depend upon in cases of emergency. Among them 

- was Cornelius Washburn, who had the cunning of a fox for ambuscading, 
; and the daring of a lion for encountering. With this party, Kenton crossed 
) the Ohio, at Limestone, and proceeded down to opposite the mouth of 
-■ Holt's creek, where the Indian canoes lay concealed. Here his party lay 
J in ambush four days, before they saw or heard anything of the Indians. On 

> the fourth day of their ambuscade, they observed three Indians come down 
r the bank, and drive six horses into the river. The horses swam over. The 
; Indians then raised one of their canoes they had sunk, and crossed over. 
I When the Indians came near the shore, Kenton discovered, that of the 

► three men in the canoe, one was a white man. As he thought the white 
man was probably a prisoner, he ordered his men to fire alone at the In- 

] dians, and save the white man. His men fired; the two Indians fell. The 
headway which the canoe had, ran it upon the shore; the white man in the 
canoe picked up his gun, and as Kenton ran down to the water's edge, to 
receive the man, he snapped his gun at the whites. Kenton then ordered 
1 his men to kill him. He was immediately shot. About three or four hours 
• afterward, on the same day, two more Indians, and another white man, 
came to the river, and drove in five horses. The horses swam over ; and 
-. the Indians raised another of their sunk canoes, and followed the horses 
: across the Ohio. As soon as the canoe touched the shore with the Indians, 
Kenton's men fired upon them and killed them all. The white man who 
was with this party of Indians had his ears cut, his nose bored, and all the 
. marks which distinguish the Indians. Kenton and his men still kept up 
I the ambuscade, knowing there were still more Indians, and one canoe be- 
lt hind. Some time in the night, the main body of the Indians came to the 
place where their canoes were sunk, and hooted like owls; but not receiv- 
' ing any answer, they began to think all was not right. The Indians were 
as vigilant as weasels. The two parties who had been killed, the main body 
expected to find encamped on the other side of the Ohio; and as no an- 



332 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

swer was given to their hooting, which was doubtless agreed upon as a 
countersign, one of the Indians ventured to swim the river to reconnoiter, 
and discover what had become of their friends. The Indian who swam the 
river, must have discovered the ambuscade. He went upon a high hill, or 
knob, which was immediately in Kenton's rear, and gave three long and 
loud yells ; after which he informed his friends that they must immediately 
make their escape, as there was a party of whites waylaying them. Kenton 
had several men who understood the Indian language. Not many minutes 
after the Indian on the hill had warned his companions of their danger, the 
Bourbon militia came up. It being dark, the Indians broke and ran, leav- 
ing about thirty horses, which they had stolen from about Bourbon. The 
next morning, some attempts were made to pursue the savages; but they 
had scattered and straggled off in such small parties, that the pursuit was 
abandoned, and Kenton and his party returned home, without the affair 
making any more noise or eclat than would have taken place on the return 
of a party from a common hunting tour. Although Kenton and his party 
did not succeed as well as they could wish, or their friends expected, yet the 
Indians were completely foiled and defeated in their object; six of them 
were killed, and all the horses they had stolen were retaken, and the re- 
mainder of the Indians scattered, to return home in small squads. This 
was the last inroad the Indians made in Kentucky; from henceforward the 
settlers lived free from all alarms." 



EVENTS OF THE PERIOD FROM I 795 TO 1800. 



333 



CHAPTEE XXL 

(1 795-1800.) 



Changes of the judiciary. 

Salaries of officials. 
' Treaty at Greenville with Indians. 

With Southern Indians. 

British treaty arouses opposition. 

Treaty with Spain. 

Its timely effects. 

Spanish intrigues revived. 

Mission of Thomas Power. 
t Agency of Sebastian. 
c Innes and Nicholas. 
1 Plans of intrigue. 

. Humphrey Marshall, as senator, offends 
, Kentucky sentiment. 

Attempt to address Judges Muter and 
'Sebastian from the Appellate bench. 

Final adjustment. 

Garrard made governor. 

John Adams president. 

Imperfect land laws. 

Distressing litigation and troubles. 

The occupying claimant never safe. 

Marshall's relief law. 

Alien and sedition laws. 

Odious to the sentiment of Kentuckians. 

Protest in the resolutions of 1 798-9. 

Virginia adopts similar resolutions. 

Importance of their doctrines in the fu- 
ture of national politics. 

Murray opposes and Breckinridge de- 
fends. 

Jefferson the author. 

Calhoun the advocate. 

South Carolina nullification a first fruit. 

Our late civil war the final fruit. 

Justifying causes of the resolutions. 

Some good effects. 

Retraction in 1833, by legislative re- 
solve. 

The effect after 1798. 

Democratic administrations for twenty- 
four years. 



Daniel Boone wrecked by land-sharks. 

Disheartened, he moves to Missouri^ 
then a Spanish territory. 

Made commandant, and given ten thou- 
sand arpents of land. 

In Greenup county, in 1799. 

Again becomes a hunter in the wilder- 
ness. 

Loses his Spanish land-grant. 

His wife dies. 

His own death. 

Last years of George Rogers Clark. 

His misfortunes and death. 

Kenton's fate yet more sad. 

Wrecked by bad laws and land-sharks^ 
and imprisoned for debt. 

Takes refuge at Urbana, Ohio. 

Revisits Kentucky. 

Legislature restores his titles to lands 
sold for taxes. 

His death, in 1836. 

Movements for a new constitution. 

Convention, in 1799, makes one. 

Its provisions. 

Alienations with the French Govern- 
ment. 

President Adams calls an extra session 
of Congress. 

Preparations for war. 

The president makes further overtures. 

Our ministers rejected by the French 
cabinet. 

Hostile acts of France. 

Retaliations by United States. 

Resolutions by both parties in Ken- 
tucky. 

Naval battles. 

A treaty of peace at last. 

African slavery. 

Its phases in pioneer days. 

Henry Clay's early sentiments. 

Efforts to abolish. 



334 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In the session of 1795, the Legislature passed an act divesting the Court 
of Appeals of original jurisdiction in land cases, and established six district 
courts; one each at Washington, Paris, Lexington, Frankfort, Danville, and 
Bardstown.i The court of Oyer and Terminer was superseded by these. 
They were held twice a year by two judges; their jurisdiction embracing all 
matters at common law or in chancery arising within their districts, except 
for assault and battery, for slander, and for actions for less than fifty pounds. 
At the next session, a court of quarter sessions in each county, to be com- 
posed of three justices to be appointed for the purpose, was provided for. 
A third act reconstructed the county courts, the judges of which, like the 
judges of the quarter sessions, were legislated out of office by repealing 
the law of their creation. This dangerous precedent of assuming, by an 
indirection, control of the inferior courts by the Legislature, occasioned severe 
comment; and afterward became, in the history of the State, the cause of 
violent and embittered controversy, in its application to the Court of Ap- 
peals. The civil list at this period was in accordance with the economic 
spirit of the times, the habits of life, and the enhanced value of money. 
The salary of the governor was one thousand dollars per annum; of the 
appellate judges, six hundred and sixty-six; of the secretary of state, treas- 
urer, auditor, and attorney-general, three hundred and thirty-three dollars 
each. The number of representatives in the General Assembly was forty- 
two, as follows: Bourbon, five; Clark, two; Fayette, six; Green, one; Har- 
din, one; Harrison, one; Jefferson, two; Logan, one; Lincoln, three; Mercer, 
three ; Madison, three ; Mason, three ; Nelson, three ; Shelby, one ; Scott, 
two; Washington, two, and Woodford, three. 

In 1795, a treaty was made at Greenville, Ohio, with the Northern In- 
dians, which established comparative peace for many years afterward, and 
put an end for all future time to Indian invasions of Kentucky. The next 
year a similar treaty was made with the Southern Indians, with much the 
same results. On the auspicious events coincident, Butler writes : ^ 

"These pacific measures, so important to the prosperity of the one party, 
and the existence of the other, were most essentially promoted by the British 
treaty concluded on the 19th of November, 1794, and the equally important 
treaty with Spain, agreed to on the 17th of October, 1795. 

"In regard to the British treaty, which convulsed this country more than 
any measure since the Revolution, and which required all the weight of 
Washington's great and beloved name to give it the force of law, no section 
of the country was more deeply interested than Kentucky; yet perhaps in 
no part of the Union was it more obnoxious. Its whole contents encoun- 
tered the strong prepossession of the Whigs against everything British; and 
this feeling seems to have prevailed in greater bitterness among the people 
of the Southern States (possibly from more intense sufferings in the Revolu- 
tionary war) than in any other portion of the Union, on account of their 

I Marshall, Vol. II., p. 55. 2 Butler, p. 242. 



EFFECTS OF THE SPANISH TREATY. 335 

sympathies with France. Yet now, when the passions which agitated the 
country so deeply, and spread the roots of party so widely, have subsided, 
the award of sober history must be, that the British treaty was dictated by 
' the soundest interests of this young and growing country. What else saved 
'our infant institutions from the dangerous ordeal of war? What restored 
the Western posts, the pledges of Western tranquillity, but this much-abused 
I convention ? The military establishments of the British upon the Western 
' frontiers were to be surrendered before the ist day of June, 1796. Further 
^ than this, Kentucky was not particularly interested; but it is due to the 
|, reputation of the immortal father of his country, and the statesmen of Ken- 
^ tucky who supported his administration in this obnoxious measure, to men- 
tion that Mr. Jay informed the president, in a private letter, that 'to d^ 
more was impossible; further concessions on the part of England could not 
.be obtained.' ^ Fortunate was it for the new Union and young institutions 
I of the infant republic, that they were allowed by this treaty time to obtain 
root, and to fortify themselves in the national sympathies and confidence." 
The other treaty, with Spain, referred to, was of not less importance in 
J its immediate bearings on the future of the Commonwealth, affecting both 
the peace of society and the interests of commerce and trade. We have 
already adverted to the aborted overtures of Don Gardoqui, and the intrigues 
^.'Of Wilkinson and his associates. The failure of all previous efforts to seduce 
' and to dissever Kentucky from allegiance to the Union and to the people of 
. her own kindred did not utterly extinguish the hope of the Spaniards. Their 
dream of a western empire for more than a century placed in the magnifi- 
cent vision, as the central feature, the dominion and control of the great 
- Mississippi valley, and consequently of the navigation of the main artery 
^ of commerce which flowed through its center, and led to the ocean. En- 
, tranced by the grandeur and glory of this promise to the eye, they could 
J not consent to abandon the hope of its realization. While open negotiations 
were pending, therefore, between the Federal capital and the Spanish court, 
. they were protracted for indefinite years, with alternate encouragement and 
, neglect upon the part of Spain, as her affairs with France or Great Britain 
, promised a continuance of peace, or to involve her in the maelstrom of war 
which was devastating the central nations of Europe. Thomas Pinckney, 
r our minister to London, was commissioned by Washington to proceed to 
Madrid, with plenary powers to negotiate terms of treaty, about the last 
, of June, 1795. I^y the end of October, terms mutually satisfactory were 
agreed upon, which acknowledged our southern limits to the north of the 
thirty-first degree of latitude, and our western, to the middle of the Missis- 
sippi. Our right of the navigation of the Mississippi to the sea was con- 
' ceded, and also the right of deposit at New Orleans for our produce for 
three years. 2 Yet behind these fair prospects of an amicable arrangement 

1 Jay's Life, Vol. II., p. 235. 

2 Journal House of Representatives; Wilkinson's Memoirs, Vol. II. 



336 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of our long-pending differences at Madrid, insidious conspiracy was again 
busily marplotting, with little less than treasonable intent, between the leaders 
at New Orleans and in Kentucky, to consummate the first hope and wishes 
of the Spaniards. 

i"In July, 1795, Governor Carondelet dispatched Thomas Power to 
Kentucky with a letter to Benjamin Sebastian, then a judge of our Court 
of Appeals. In this communication he declares that the ' confidence reposed 
in you by my predecessor, Brigadier-General Miro, and your former cor- 
respondence, have induced me to make a communication to you highly inter- 
esting to the country in which you live, and to Louisiana.' He then 
mentions that the king of Spain was willing to open the navigation of the 
Mississippi to the Western country, and desirous to establish certain regula- 
tions, reciprocally beneficial to the commerce of both countries. To effect 
these objects, Judge Sebastian was expected, the governor says, * to procure 
agents to be chosen and fully empowered by the people of your country to 
negotiate with Colonel Gayoso on the subject, at New Madrid, whom I 
shall send there in October next, properly authorized for the purpose, with 
directions to continue at the place or its vicinity until the arrival of your 
agents.' Some time in November or early in December of this year, Judge 
Innes and William Murray received a letter from Judge Sebastian request- 
ing them to meet him at Colonel Nicholas' house, in Mercer county. The 
gentlemen addressed went, as desired, to Colonel Nicholas', and met Judge 
Sebastian there, who submitted the letter quoted above. Some deliberation 
ensued, which resulted in the unanimous opinion of all the gentlemen as- 
sembled that Judge Sebastian should meet Colonel Gayoso, to ascertain the 
real views of the Spanish Government in these overtures. The judge ac- 
cordingly descended the Ohio, and met the Spanish agent at the mouth 
of the river. In consequence of the severity of the weather, the gentlemen 
agreed to go to New Madrid. Here a commercial agreement was partially 
approved by Sebastian ; but, a difference of opinion occurring between the 
negotiators whether any imposts, instead of a duty of four per cent., should 
be exacted upon importations into New Orleans by way of the river, the 
negotiators repaired to the metropolis, in order to submit the difference of 
opinion to the governor. This officer, upon learning the nature of the dif- 
ference between the gentlemen acting in this most insidious negotiation, 
readily consented to gratify the Kentucky envoy. It was deferred, on ac- 
count of some pressing business. A few days after this interview, the Spanish 
governor sent for Judge Sebastian, and informed him that a courier had 
arrived from Havana with the intelligence that a treaty had been signed be- 
tween the United States and Spain, which put an end to the business 
between them. Judge Sebastian, after vainly urging the Spanish governor 
to close this sub-negotiation, in the expectation that the treaty would not be 
ratified, returned to Kentucky by the Atlantic ports. 



I Butler, pp. 244-250. 



I 



cy^ 



MORE PROPOSALS. 3'3i7 

"Several reflections necessarily arise out of this summary of the nego- 
tiation of 1795, which was preserved secret from the government of Ken- 
I tucky until voluntarily disclosed by Judge Innes, in 1806, before a committee 
of the Legislature. The first remark that suggests itself on the face of 
these documents is, that Judge Sebastian had been connected with the 
. Spanish Government before this time, since Governor Carondelet refers to 
the confidence reposed in him by his predecessor. To what extent, and 
how long, no information exists within the command of the author, although 
; he has attempted to investigate the earliest ramifications of a plot, now only 
» interesting for its historical curiosity. This negotiation, though terminated 
i so abruptly by Carondelet, contrary to the urgent representations of Sebas- 
' tian, was again renewed by the former officer in 1797, while the territorial 

• line was marking between the United States and Spain, on the south. It 
r was again effected through the agency of Messrs. Power and Sebastian, and 
' in a way to endanger the Union and peace of these States more flagrantly 

and openly than on the former more covert attempt. 

"In the summer of 1797, Thomas Power again arrived at Louisville, as 
: the agent of the governor of Louisiana, and immediately communicated a 
: letter to Sebastian, desiring him to lay his proposals before Messrs. Innes, 

> Nicholas, and Murray. These proposals were no less than to withdraw 
8 from the Federal Union, and to form a government wholly unconnected 
^ with that of the Atlantic States. To aid these nefarious purposes, in the 
S face of a solemn treaty recently negotiated, and to compensate those wh6 
it should consign themselves to infamy by assisting a foreign power to dissolve,. 
b the American Union, and to convert its free republican States into depend- 

:? encies on the arbitrary and jealous Government of Spain, orders for one, or 
' even two hundred thousand dollars, on the royal treasury in New Orleans, 
' were offered; or, if more convenient, these sums were to be conveyed, at 
. the expense of his Catholic majesty, into this country, and held at the dis- 
i: posal of those wiio should degrade themselves into Spanish conspirators. 

• Fort Massac was pointed out as an object proper to be seized at the first 
f declaration of independence, and the troops of the new government, it was 
p promised, should be furnished, without loss of time, with twenty field pieces, 
'. with their carriages and every necessary appendage, including powder, balls, 
li and other munitions, together with a number of small arms sufficient to 

equip the troops which it should be judged expedient to raise. The com- 

> pensation for these free offers of money and arms, independent of weaken- 
: ing the United States, was to be obtained in the extension of the northern 

boundary of the possessions to which Spain had so pertinaciously clung, 
" and which she now so desperately, and for the last time, endeavored so 

• treacherously to retain. The northern boundary, on this side of the Mis- 
sissippi, was to be the Yazoo, as established by the British Government; 
when in possession of the Floridas, and which was, by a secret article in the 
treaty of peace, retained, as the boundary between the United States and 

22 



338 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Floridas, should Great Britain recover them from Spain. Eager, indeed, 
must Spain have been to obtain this insignificant addition to her boundary, 
when she could break in upon her jealous exclusion of foreigners from her 
American possessions, and promise the Kentuckians, if they would declare 
themselves independent of the Federal Government and establish one of 
their own, to grant them privileges far more extensive, give them a decided 
preference over the Atlantic States in her commercial connections with 
them, and place them in a situation infinitely more advantageous in every 
point of view than that in which they would find themselves were the treaty 
of 1795 to be carried into effect. Such were the powerful temptations pre- 
sented by the Spanish Government of Louisiana to some of the leading men 
of Kentucky, in order to seduce them into a dependency of Spain. These 
offers were entertained too gravely, and rejected with too much tameness 
for the honor of Kentucky patriotism, as will appear from the following 
detail given by Judge Innes to the legislative committee previously men- 
tioned : 

"After receiving the above communications from Power, Sebastian 
visited Judge Innes, at his seat near Frankfort, and laid them before him. 
The judge immediately observed that it was a dangerous project, and ought 
not to be countenanced, as the Western people had. now obtained the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi, by which all their wishes were gratified. Mr. 
Sebastian concurred in sentiment, after, it must be observed, this explicit 
declaration of Judge Innes, who seems to have given tone to the whole 
transaction. Still, as Power desired an answer in writing, Sebastian pre- 
vailed on Innes to see Colonel Nicholas, saying whatever they did he would 
concur in. In a few days afterward, Colonel Nicholas was seen by the 
judge, at Lexington, who agreed in opinion with Innes that the proposal 
ought to be rejected. The colonel, accordingly, wrote an answer ^ to 
Power's communication, which unequivocally declared they would not be 
concerned in any attempt to separate the Western country from the United 
States; that whatever part they might, at any time, be induced to take in 
the politics of their country, that her welfare would be their only induce- 
ment, and that they would never receive any pecuniary or other reward for 
any personal exertions made by them to promote that welfare. They added 
that they flattered themselves that everything concerning the important 
business of the navigation of the Mississippi would be set right by the Gov- 
ernments of the two nations ; but if this should not be the case, it appeared 
to them that it must be the policy of Spain to encourage, by every possible 
means, the free intercourse with the inhabitants of the Western country, as 
this will be the most efficient means to conciliate their good will, and to 
obtain, without hazard, and at reduced prices, those supplies which are indis- 
pensably necessary to the Spanish Government and its subjects. This reply 
was forwarded to Mr. Sebastian, and communicated by him to Mr. Power. 

I Dated Lexington, September 4, 1797 ; Journal of the House of Representatives, 1806. 



SKETCH OF THE THREE AGENTS. 339 

"This transaction must be i)ronounced a dangerous tampering with a 
foreign power, and contrary to the allegiance of American citizens. Yet the 
whole tenor of the conduct of Messrs. Innes and Nicholas can not justify 
the slightest suspicion of their fidelity to the Union of the American States, 
or indifference to their liberties. Their character for faithful, devoted friends 
to the freedom and happiness of their country had ever stood high and un- 
impaired in the confidence of their fellow-citizens. It is likewise due to 
the virtues of Judge Innes to declare that, in all the relations of private life, 
no man was dearer or more idolized by the witnesses of his mild, upright, 
and benevolent character. His ^ public career in this country, amid its 
earliest difficulties, had always been one of high trust and confidence, under 
all the changes of government; he had early been appointed judge of the 
Virginia District Court, then attorney-general, judge of the United States 
District Court for Kentucky, a member of the board of war for the Western 
country, and president of our first college of electors. In all these respon- 
sible capacities, the conduct of Judge Innes was without reproach, and 
I raised him, most deservedly, high in the public esteem, and received the 
t repeated thanks of General Washington for the discharge of high trusts. 
. Colonel Nicholas has left the reputation of an exalted and patriotic states- 
• man. In the convention of Virginia, assembled to decide upon the rati- 
- fication of the present Constitution of the United States, he took a prominent 
\ and influential part alongside such illustrious worthies as Wythe, Madison, 
\\ and Governor Randolph. In the opposition to the administration of the 
: elder Adams, he bore an ardent share, as exhibited in his celebrated letter 
( to a Virginia friend on the alien law. 

I "In regard to Mr. Sebastian, the other agent in this unhappy business, 

II much more is known of his abilities, commanding address, and most courte- 
ous, dignified manners than his devotion to popular government. He had, 

i^ however, received a judgeship in the Court of Appeals, at its organization, 
I in 1792. The most probable construction of this conference seems to be 
1 that Mr. Sebastian was the corrupt instrument of Governor Carondelet, and 
% that he permitted his acknowledged abilities and intimacy with Judge Innes 
^to swerve him from the direct and open path of public duty, by listening to 
'proposals from a foreign government, at once derogatory to his duty as a 
' public officer of the laws and his honor as a faithful citizen. 

"In the Spanish conspiracy, there are three stages and correspondent 
L' degrees of condemnation. The first existed in 1787, when Don Gardoqui 
[iconimunicated his overtures to the people of Kentucky, to establish a gov- 
pernment independent of the rest of the confederacy ; this, under the ominous 
'and disgraceful condition of the existing government, might have been 
laudably entertained by Kentucky patriots. The second happened in 1795, 
■ under circumstances of accumulated trial and disappointment to the fondest 
rand most indispensable hopes of Western prosperity; at this time the Span- 

I D. Clark's letter to Judge Innes; Palladium, April 7, 1808. 



340 HISTORY OF KENTL'CKY. 

ish propositions, whatever ultimate views were concealed under them, only- 
aimed at an irregular, and so far unjustifiable, agreement of private citizens 
with a foreign government for the regulation of Western trade. This pro- 
posal, if it had been consummated, would, however, have amounted to 
superseding the regular operations of the General Government in the Western 
commerce, and would have granted exclusive commercial favors to the 
parties in this agreement, inconsistent with the equal constitutional rights 
of the citizens of a common country. It would, moreover, have been in- 
troductive of a foreign influence, dangerous to the liberty and peace of the 
nation. But the third stage of this business, after ten years of interrupted 
communications, was the most indefensible of all ; it was a treacherous and 
undisguised attempt of Spain to dissever this country, in the face of her 
recent treaty, and inconsistent with everything like the good faith which is 
represented as characteristic of Castilian honor. This intrigue of the provin- 
cial authorities, in Spanish Louisiana, is no doubt to be traced to European 
politics." 

Humphrey Marshall, the eminent statesman and historian of Kentucky, 
was this year elected United States senator, over the distinguished John 
Breckinridge. This event derived importance from the fact that Marshall 
was a bold and uncompromising leader of the Federal party in Kentucky, 
and an earnest supporter of Washington and his administrative policy. His 
competitor was no less an able leader of the democratic or republican party, 
as the opposition was called. A violent feeling of prejudice was excited 
against the senator a short time after, on account of his vote in favor of the 
adoption of the treaty with England. The anti-Federal spirit was still rife, 
though prudent counsels had before elected him. The event of the session, 
however, was the attempt to remove from the bench of the Appellate Court, 
Judges George Muter and Benjamin Sebastian, by an address of two-thirds 
of both houses of the General Assembly. ^ 

"The cause of this delicate interference with a high judicial tribunal arose 
out of an opinion and decree of the Court of Appeals, on the subject of 
claims under certificates issued by the commissioners for settlements and 
pre-emptions, in the case of Kenton against McConnell. Such meritorious 
titles must naturally have been regarded with the fondest affection, won as 
they had been at the hazard of everything dear to man. When, therefore, 
the decisions of a court, which were made final, where not caveated by the 
land law of 1779 creating them, and whose conclusive character had been 
decided by the old district court, were to be opened to all the perilous un- 
certainty, vexation, and expense of legal controversy, it was not at all 
strange that the people and the Legislature should be agitated. A memo- 
rial was laid before the Legislature, which brought the matter regularly before 
that body. The House of Representatives determined to summon the two 
judges before them. This was done, and a copy of the memorial annexed 

I P.utler, p 252; Marshall, Vol, II. p. i6i. 



ADDRESS FROM BOTH HOUSES. 



341 



to the summons was served on the two obnoxious judges; Wallace, the 
? third judge, having objected to the decree. They answered that justice 
': to the judge, and to the independence of the court, demanded that they 

should be proceeded against in the manner pointed out in the Constitution, 
' in which mode they felt themselves ready to answer any specific charge. 
■ The house interpreted this letter into a refusal to appear before it, and pro- 
!•' ceeded to act upon a resolution, that the opinion and decree are subversive 
i' of the plainest principles of law and justice, and involve, in their conse- 

* quences, the distress and ruin of many of our innocent and meritorious 
' citizens. The resolution then goes on to allege that the judges must have 
' done so, either from undue influence or want of judgment; as said decree 
> and opinion contravene the decisions of the court of commissioners, who 
1^ were authorized to adjust and settle under the Virginia land act of 1779, 

* and also contradict a former decision of the late Supreme Court for the dis- 
trict of Kentucky, on a similar point — whence arises a well-grounded appre- 
hension that the said George Muter and Benjamin Sebastian are altogether 

' destitute of that judgment, integrity, and firmness, which are essential in 

* every judge; but more especially in judges of the Supreme Court; and that 
there is no security for property so long as the said George Muter and Ben- 
jamin Sebastian continue as judges of the Court of Appeals. The house, 

" then, in consequence of these recitals, and their power to address the gov- 

[ ernor to remove any judge for any reasonable cause, which should not be 

' sufficient ground for impeachment, determined, by a majority of three votes, 

that this address ought to be made. The subject, however, was resumed in 

- the Senate, and a resolution, censuring the judges for a decision, which the 
r resolution asserted, from what appears at this time, proceeded from a want 

of a proper knowledge of law, or some impure motives, that appear to dis- 

' cover a want of integrity, passed by a majority of one vote. This was most 

unconstitutionally transmitted to the other house for its action, when the 

- question had fallen from a want of the constitutional majority of two-thirds. 
It passed by the same majority, as the first resolution introduced on this 

' subject into the house." 

The overweening influence which George Nicholas was alleged to have 
had with the court entered into the discussions of this issue, and the sus- 

' picions were only intensified of the party favoring prosecution, by his being 
counsel for McConnell in this case. At the subsequent term, Judge Muter 

? reversed his opinion, and joined Judge Wallace in one favorable to Kenton. 

^ But Sebastian stubbornly adhered to the first. The action of the Legislature 

' was a bold venture; but it was encouraged by the almost universal senti- 
ment, that the court had rendered a flagrantly unjust and injurious decision, 
and one affecting widely the general interests of the citizens. 

General Benjamin Logan and James Garrard, both of the democratic 
party, became candidates for the succession of Isaac Shelby, the first gov- 
ernor of Kentucky. By a bare majority Garrard was elected, and assumed 



342 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



the functions of the office in June, 1796. Harry Toulmin, an accompUshed 
and learned gentleman, who had been a follower of Dr. Priestly, in Eng- 
land, and a minister in the Unitarian church, was appointed secretary of 
state. It was the acknowledgment of his worth that rendered this appoint- 
ment acceptable to the people at the time; a testimony that was afterward 
confirmed by his succession to the judgeship of the United States Court in 
Alabama. He was the author of a digest of the laws of Kentucky, since 
held in high esteem. 

The essential features of the message of the new governor, we give in 
the following extracts : 

"With peculiar pleasure it is that I call your attention to the present 
state of the country, contrasted with what it lately was, involved in war 
with a cruel foe, on all our borders; and now, by the directions and exer- 
tions of the Federal Government, as the instrument of a wise and gracious 
Providence, the blessings of peace, no longer in expectation, are in our en- 
joyment. Add to this the increase of population; the extension of the 
settlements to the extremities of our territories; the flourishing state of agri- 
culture; the increase of improvements; the establishment of manufactures; 
a year of the greatest plenty, in succession to one of the greatest scarcity, 
with the hopeful prospects opening to agricultural industry and commercial 
enterprise by means of the treaty with Spain, which has opened the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi, and a port at Orleans for us — objects long and ar- 
dently desired — and with this accumulation of blessings, extending our views 
to the security of our rights by means of our constitution and laws, I might 
ask, in the exultation of an American citizen, where is the nation that hath 
greater reason to be thankful, contented, and happy ? 

"Thus fortunately circumstanced, our present situation seems peculiarly 
favorable to legislative deliberations, while it invites the attention to a calm 
review of the laws in force. Suffer me to refer you to some of them. The 
first to be mentioned, as directly affecting humanity, are those of the crimi- 
nal code, and the law respecting grand juries. Crimes of magnitude escape 
punishment, while those of a trivial nature are punished with an undue se- 
verity. And however this course of procedure may suit despotic govern- 
ments, it derogates from the justice and the honor of a free and enlightened 
State. 

"In relation to the adjustment of the boundary between Virginia and 
this State, the executive will want the aid of the Legislature. Commissioners 
have been appointed by each State ; yet the business, I am sorry to say, has 
not terminated so happily as was anticipated, owing to a disagreement be- 
tween them. 

"The general revenue laws of the State seem to require careful revision. 
The act establishing a permanent revenue seems to have undergone so 
many hasty alterations, and has become so complex and susceptible of so 
many constructions, that its operation is considerably impeded, and son\ 



, 



ADAMS CHOSEN THE SEC(3ND PRESIDENT. 343 

times Its effect defeated. • While the collectors are authorized to collect the 
arrearages of 1792 and '93, it is- doubted if the law will compel them to pay 
the money collected into the public treasury. The attorney-general says it 
will not. Another part of this law subjects land not entered for taxation 
within a limited time to be forfeited to the State. Can, or ought, such for- 

p feiture injuriously affect the rights of others who have complied with the 

(: law? It may be a question as to non-residents, whether the forfeiture is not 
an infraction of the seventh article of the compact with Virginia, and if so, 
a violation of the Constitution. These matters being deemed worthy of at- 
tention are, on that account, presented to your view. 

|t . "The Green river settlers, availing themselves of the act of last session, 

ij have paid four thousand pounds into the public treasury for lands taken up. 

Ii Those who have not paid have no doubt forfeited their claims to the State; 

;. but I do very sincerely recommend them as proper subjects of legislative 

1 indulgence. 

L "The auditor's statement exhibits a balance of more than eleven thou- 

i sand pounds in favor of the State. This is a subject on which I congratu- 

j late you, and at the same time take the liberty to express a hope that its dis- 

- bursement will be on objects of general utility. 

I " The act for transcribing certain entry books has been complied with. 

^ "The appointments to office, since last session, will be laid before the 

I Senate." 

^ • The issues of the approaching presidential election were agitating the 

L whole country, and the people of Kentucky were not the least interested, 
of the many. Washington issued his affectionate and paternal valedictory 
to his countrymen, announcing that he would not again serve after the 4th 
of March, 1797. The two great political parties began to organize for the 

! campaign, and to consider the claims of candidates. The Federal party 
selected John Adams, who was then vice-president; and the Democratic 
party, Thomas Jefferson, who was secretary of state. Honored and em- 
balmed as these great and patriotic statesmen now are in the memories of 
the people of to-day, we will find it difficult to realize that the presidential 
contest waged between the adherents on either side was as remorseless, in- 
temperate, and embittered, as was that between the adherents of Blaine 
and Cleveland in the very recent presidential campaign. The truth of his- 
tory thus forms a commentary of rebuke upon the uncharitable injustice and 
unkindness with which the characters of the most eminent and worthy men 
are assailed by partisan spirit, • and at the same time affords grateful assur- 
ances that, when time shall have dissipated the prejudices of the partisan, 
the virtues and nobler deeds of the great shall live to be honored, not only 
in the urn of memory, but in the holier consecration of affection, as well. 
On counting the electoral votes, it was found that, by a plurality of three, 
John Adams was chosen the second president of the United States. Thomas 
Jefferson receiving the next highest number, was, by the prQvisions of the 



344 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Constitution, then declared elected vice-president, a singularly antagonistic 
succession, in case of a presidential vacancy. 

The laws of Virginia and Kentucky under which the titles to land had 
been acquired, and upon which the claims were now based, seemed a very 
flood of evils let loose to harass and distress the original settlers, and with 
little less remorse than the inflictions of savage warfare. There was no sur- 
vey and partition of public lands by the Federal Government in Kentucky, 
as these lands did not become the disposable property of the same. The 
parent State of Virginia made no provision for such survey. Hence, the 
titles were acquired under different laws, and in different conflicting and 
misleading modes, only to inveigle the unsuspecting into interminable, and, 
too often, ruinous litigations. Each claimant surveyed for himself, and of 
course a multiplicity of surveys overlay the same land, or overlapped upon 
the surveys of adjacent tracts. 

1 By the land law of Virginia, passed in 1779, for the sale of public lands, 
one holding a warrant for land might enter in the surveyor's books the 
boundaries of such lands as he wanted to acquire previous to any survey ; 
but he must direct the location thereof so specially and precisely, as that 
others might be enabled with certainty to locate warrants on the adjacem 
residuum. Others claimed rights of settlement or pre-emption, as described 
under the land law in its appropriate gear. These claimants must obtain 
certificates from the commissioners appointed, naming the cause of claim, 
the number of acres, and describing the location. Under these brief texts 
arose a system of judicial legislation fraught with subtlety and perplexity, 
and aggravated by the license and entanglements of surveys. In the lan- 
guage of the distinguished attorney, John Rowan, "the territory of Ken- 
tucky was encumbered and cursed with a triple layer of adversary claims." 
The occupying claimant who had built his cabin and outlying improvements, 
cleared away the forest growth, and inclosed his fields, had no assured guar- 
antee that his title would not soon be assailed by some adverse claimant 
from a distant State or district, who had never seen the land, or embarked 
a penny in its improvement. Thus home, comfort, and competency might, 
by a judicial fiat, be in a moment swept away, and occupant, wife, and chil- 
dren beggared and turned out upon the merciless charities of the world. 

The questions concerned the deepest feelings of the human heart ; for 
the freehold, improved and adorned as the sweet refuge of the laborer, his 
affectionate partner for life, and their loved offspring, possessed a value and 
gave a charm to life far beyond its worth in silver and gold. Often the re- 
mains of the loved and lamented dead of the household and kindred lay in 
some consecrated spot near by, while every familiar object treasured some 
pleasant memories of the past. In the safe repose of peace at last, those 
rude homes far away in the wilderness were peculiarly endeared to the peo- 
ple of Kentucky. They had risked their lives in exile from civilization for 

I Butler, p. 267. 



J 



Marshall's bill passes the legislature. 345 

them; braving all perils, enduring all hardships, and cheerfully laboring to 
subdue the wilds of nature. Now, when, amidst a cloud of legal perplexi- 
ties, new even to the subtle priesthood of the law, they were about to lose 
the fruits of all toils and sacrifices, they could but feel the pain of suspense 
and danger to the depths of their hearts, when they found the elder patents 
of foreign claimants brought against the titles of the actual settlers and oc- 
cupants. The settlement of the country was discouraged by this condition 
of affairs. 

Under the laws and rulings of the courts, not only might the bona fide 
occupant, who had cleared the ground, erected houses, built barns, planted 
orchards, and made fields and meadows, be evicted from his premises and 
divested of his title; but the new and foreign claimant was allowed to take 
possession and use of all the improvements, without compensation, and to 
demand of him rent for the use of the land for the time of occupancy. 
Against this palpable injustice the common sentiment of the people protest- 
ed, and in tone that demanded redress of grievances. 

To meet this demand a bill passed the Legislature and became a law, on 
the introduction of Humphrey Marshall : " That the occupant of land from 
which he is evicted, or deprived by better tide, shall be excused from pay- 
ments of rents and profits, accrued prior to the actual notice of the adverse 
claim ; provided, his possession was peaceable, and he shows a plain and 
connected title in law or equity deduced from some record, and that the 
successful claimant should be liable to a judgment against him for all valu- 
able and lasting improvements made on the land prior to actual notice of 
adverse claim." This was the application of a remedy in justice, and to the 
full extent of the law's permission, although the right and jurisdiction of 
the Legislature were boldly challenged by interested attorneys, on the ground 
that "it was a violation of the compact of separation with Virginia, which 
declared that the rights and interests of lands derived from the laws of Vir- 
ginia should be decided by the laws in force when the compact was made, 
and this precluded legislation on the subject." The act of the Legislature 
was sustained by the courts of Kentucky. 

^" In the year 1798, an agitation took place which has scarcely ever been 
equaled in Kentucky, produced by the passage of two acts of Congress, fa- 
miliarly known as the Alien and Sedition laws. The sentiment of Kentucky 
was never more unanimous than in the condemnation of these measures. 
The governor, in his first communication to the Legislature after their pas- 
sage, called the attention of that body to these measures by telling them that 
they had vested the president with high and dangerous powers, and in- 
trenched on the prerogatives of the individual States, had created an un- 
common agitation of mind in different parts of the Union, and particularly 
among the citizens of this Commonwealth. The alien law authorized the 
president of the United States to order all such aliens as he shall judge dan- 

I Butler, p. 282; Marshall, Vol. IL, p. 255. 



346 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

gerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable 
ground to suspect are concerned in treasonable or secret machinations 
against the government thereof, to depart out of the territory of the United 
States. By another section, the president was authorized to grant license to 
any alien to remain within the United States for such tune as he shall judge 
proper, and at such place as he may designate. In addition to these high 
and arbitrary powers over aliens, whose nations were at peace with the 
United States, powers so calculated to arouse the jealousies of a people at- 
tached to their liberties, it was likewise enacted that should any alien return 
who had been ordered out of the United States by the president, unless by 
his permission, he shall be imprisoned so long as, in the opinion of the 
president, the public safety may require. 

" The sedition law was still more odious than this measure. It attempted 
to protect the official conduct of the different branches of the Government 
of the United States from that free and unrestrained discussion, alone 
worthy of a people canvassing the public conduct of their agents. This ob- 
ject it effected by holding any person answerable, by fine and imprisonment, 
who should print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous, and malicious 
writing against the Government of the United States, the president of the 
United States, or either house of Congress, with intent to defame either of 
them, or excite against either of them the hatred of the good people of the 
United States. The great objection to this measure is not its subjecting 
malicious falsities to punishment, but its subjection of opinion, however hon- 
estly entertained, to fine and imprisonment." 

The sense of Kentucky was expressed on these obnoxious measures in 
what since became, and are yet known as, the famous resolutions of 1798; 
and which, with their counterpart adopted by the Legislature of Virginia, 
are memorable both for the discords which produced them, and for the sub- 
sequent and final efforts at their enforcement — finally misdirected in the 
gigantic civil war which convulsed the nation in 1860-65. These resolutions 
are generally believed to have been drafted by Thomas Jefferson ; and this 
view has been strengthened by a letter of Jefferson admitting the author- 
ship. This claim has been indignantly resented by the relatives of Hon. 
John Breckinridge, for whom they assert their authorship, as well as respon- 
sibility. It is reasonably certain that the famous document was discussed, 
deliberated, and matured in the private council of several statesmen, of 
whom the two claimants to authorship were most jirominent. The mere 
mechanism of making a draft was of less importance. So conspicuous a 
part have these Kentucky resolutions played in both State and Federal poli- 
tics, that it is but due to the completeness of history to place them in full 
before the reader upon the pages of this work. They were as follows : 

"i. Resolved, That the several States composing the United States ot 
America are not united upon the principle of unlimited submission to the 
General Government; but that by compact under the style and title of a 



THE FAMOUS RESOLUTIONS OF 1 798. 347 

I constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they con- 
r stituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Gov- 
, ernment certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary 
[, mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the Gen- 
eral Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, 
;i void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, 
[ and as an integral party, its co-States forming as to itself the other party ; 
: that the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive 
or ^naX judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would 
I have made its discretion, and not t'he Constitution, the measure of its pow- 
, ers ; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no 
common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of 
, infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. 

^ "2. Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States having dele- 
gated to Congress power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities 
I and current coin of the United States, piracies and felonies committed on 
il the high seas, and offenses against the laws of nations, and no other crimes 
whatever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amend- 
ments to the Constitution having also declared, ' that the powers not dele- 
1 gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;' therefore, 
■ also the same act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and 
( entitled 'an act, in addition to the act entitled an act for the punishment 
of certain crimes against the United States ; ' as also the act passed by them 
on the 27th day of June, 1798, entitled 'an act to punish frauds committed 
; on the Bank of the United States' (and all other their acts which assume to 
' create, define, or punish crimes other than those enumerated in the Consti- 
) tution), are altogether void and of no force; and that the power to create, 
define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and of right appertains, 
' solely and exclusively, to the respective States, each within its own terri- 
tory. 

"3. Resolved, That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly 
declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that ' the powers 
not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it 
to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people ; and 
that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom 
of the press, being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of 
right remain, and were reserved to the States, or to the people;' that thus 
was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judg- 
ing how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged 
without lessening their useful freedom ; and how far those abuses which can 
not be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be 
destroyed; and thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the United 



348 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to 
themselves the right of protecting the same ; as this State, by a law passed 
on the general demand of its citizens, had already protected them from all 
human restraints or interference. And that in addition to this general prin- 
ciple and express declaration, another and more special provision has been 
made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly de- 
clares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom 
of speech or of the press;' thereby guarding in the same sentence, and 
under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, 
insomuch, that whatever violates either, throws down the sanctuary which 
covers the others ; and that libels, falsehoods, and defamation, equally with 
heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of Federal trib- 
unals. That therefore the act of the Congress of the United States, passed 
on the 14th day of July, 1798, entitled 'an act, in addition to the act for the 
punishment of certain crimes against the United States,' which does abridge 
the freedom of the press, is not law, but is altogether void and of no effect. 

"4. Resolved, That alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protec- 
tion of the laws of the State wherein they are ; that no power over them 
has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual 
States distinct from their power over citizens; and it being true as a gen- 
eral principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also 
declared that ' the powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 
tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respect- 
ively, or to the people,' the act of the Congress of the United States, passed 
on the 22d day of June, 1798, entitled 'an act concerning aliens,' which 
assumes power over alien friends not delegated by the Constitution, is not 
law, but is altogether void and of no force. 

"5. Resolved, That in addition to the general principle, as well as the 
express declaration that powers not delegated are reserved, another and more 
special provision inserted in the Constitution, from abundant caution, has 
declared 'that the migratioti or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by 
the Congress prior to the year 1808;' that this Commonwealth does admit 
the migration of alien friends described as the subject of the said act con- 
cerning aliens; that a provision against prohibiting their migration is a pro- 
vision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be nugatory; that to 
remove them when migrated is equivalent to a prohibition of their migra- 
tion, and is, therefore, contrary to the said provision of the Constitution, 
and void. 

"6. Resolved, That the imprisonment of a person under the protection 
of the laws of this Commonwealth, on his failure to obey the simple order oi 
the president to depart out of the United States, as is undertaken by the 
said act, entitled 'an act concerning aliens,' is contrary to the Constitu- 



1 



A REPEAL PRAYED. 349 

tion, one amendment to which has provided that ' no person shall be deprived 
of liberty without due process of law,' and that another having provided 
' that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a 
public trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature and cause of 
the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have 
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the as- 
sistance of counsel for his defense,' the same act undertaking to authorize 
the president to remove a person out of the United States who is under the 
protection of the law, on his own suspicion, without accusation, without 
jury, without public trial, without confrontation of the witnesses against 
him, without having witnesses in his favor, without defense, without counsel, 
is contrary to these provisions also of the Constitution; is, therefore, not 
law, but utterly void and of no force; that transferring the power of judging 
any person who is under the protection of the laws from the courts to the 
president of the United States, as is undertaken by the same act concerning 
aliens, is against the article of the Constitution which provides that ' the 
judicial power of the United States shall be vested in the courts, the judges 
of which shall hold their offices during good behavior,' and that the said act 
is void for that reason also; and it is further to be noted that this transfer 
of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the General Government who 
already possesses all the executive and a qualified negative in all the legisla- 
tive powers. 

"7. Resolved, That the construction applied by the General Government 
(as is evinced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Consti- 
tution of the United States which delegate to Congress power to lay and 
collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for 
the common defense and general welfare of the United States, and to make 
all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the 
powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, 
or any department thereof, goes to the destruction of all the limits prescribed 
to their power by the Constitution; that words meant by that instrument to 
be subsidiary only to the execution of the limited powers, ought not to be so 
construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part so to be taken, 
as to destroy the whole residue of the instrument; that the proceedings of 
the General Government, under color of these articles, will be a fit and 
necessary subject for revisal and correction at a time of greater tranquillity, 
while those specified in the preceding resolutions call for immediate redress. 

"8. Resolved, That the preceding resolutions be transmitted to the sen- 
ators and representatives in Congress from this Commonwealth, who are 
hereby enjoined to present the same to their respective houses, and to use 
their best endeavors to procure, at the next session of Congress, a repeal of 
the aforesaid unconstitutional and obnoxious acts. 

"9. Resolved, lastly, That the governor of this Commonwealth be and is 
hereby authorized and requested to communicate the preceding resolutions 



35° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

to the Legislatures of the several States, to assure them that this Common- 
wealth considers union for specified national purposes, and particularly for 
those specified in their late Federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, 
happiness, and prosperity of all the States; that, faithful to that compact, 
according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and 
acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation; 
that it does also believe that to take from the States all the powers of self- 
government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, 
without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed 
to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness, or prosperity of these 
States, and that, therefore, this Commonwealth is determined, as it doubts 
not its co-States are, tamely to submit to undelegated, and consequently un- 
limited, powers in no man or body of men on earth; that if the acts before 
specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from them : That the 
General Government may place any act they think proper on the list of 
crimes and punish it themselves, whether enumerated or not enumerated by 
the Constitution, as recognizable by them; that they may transfer its cog- 
nizance to the president or any other person, who may himself be the ac- 
cuser, counsel, judge, and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence, his 
order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his breast the sole record 
of the transaction ; that a very numerous and valuable description of the in- 
habitants of these States being by this precedent reduced as outlaws to the 
absolute dominion of one man, and the barriers of the Constitution thus 
swept away from us all, no rampart now remains against the passions and 
the power of a majority of Congress to protect from a like exportation or 
other more grievous punishment the minority of the same body, the Legisla- 
tures, judges, governors, and counselors of the States, nor their other 
peaceable inhabitants who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights 
and liberties of the States and people ; or who for other causes, good or bad, 
may be obnoxious to the views, or marked by the suspicions, of the presi- 
dent, or be thought dangerous to his or their elections, or other interests, 
public or personal ; that the friendless alien has, indeed, been selected as 
the safest subject of a first experiment; but the citizen will soon follow — or, 
rather, has already followed — for already has a sedition act marked him as 
its prey; that these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested 
on the threshold, may tend to drive these States into revolution and blood, 
and will furnish new calumnies against republican governments, and new 
pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man can not be governed 
but by a rod of iron ; that it would be a dangerous delusion, were a confi- 
dence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our 
rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism; free govern- 
ment is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not 
confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom 
we are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly 



ki 



END OF THE RESOLUTIONS. 351 

fixed the limits to which and no further our confidence may go; and let the 

honest advocate of confidence read the alien and sedition acts, and say if 

' the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it 

■ created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits. Let him 
! say what the Government is if it be not a tyranny which the men of our 
; choice have conferred on the president, and the president of our choice has 

assented to and accepted over the friendly strangers to whom the mild spirit 
; of our country and its laws had pledged hospitality and protection ; that the 
I' men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the president 
i" than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of justification, the sacred 
I force of truth, and the form and substance of law and justice. In questions 
r of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him 
down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this Common- 
wealth does, therefore, call on its co-States for an expression of their senti- 
' ments on the acts concerning aliens, and for the punishment of certain 
crimes hereinbefore specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are or are 
not authorized by the Federal compact. And it doubts not that their sense 

■ will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited gov- 
ernment, whether general or particular, and that the rights and liberties of 
their co States will be exposed to no danger by remaining embarked on a 
common bottom with their own; that they will concur with this Common- 

1 wealth in considering the said acts as so palpable against the Constitution as 
' to amount to an undisguised declaration that the compact is not meant to be 
■' the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will pro- 
; ceed in the exercise over these States of all powers whatsoever; that they 
I will view this as seizing the rights of the States and consolidating them in 
the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed to bind the 
States, not merely in cases made Federal, but in all cases whatsoever, by 
laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent; that 
this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and to 
live under one deriving its power from its own will, and not from our au- 
thority; and that the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not 
made Federal, will concur in declaring these acts void and of no force, and 
will each unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their repeal at the 
, next session of Congress. 

"Approved November i6, 1798. 

"James Garrard, Governor of Kentucky. 
"By the governor. 

" Harry Toulmin, Secj-etary of State. 

"Similar resolutions, drafted by James Madison, and familiarly known 

as the 'Virginia resolutions of 1798,' were adopted by the Legislature of 

that State, on the 21st of December, 1798, and likewise directed to be for- 

! warded by the governor to the Legislatures of other States, for consideration. 

Dissenting and condemnatory views were adopted in resolutions passed by 



352 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Delaware, on February i, 1799; by the State of Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence Plantation, in the same month; by Massachusetts, on February 13th; 
by New York, on March 5th; by Connecticut, on the second Thursday of 
May; by New Hampshire, on the 14th of June, and by Vermont, on the 30th 
of October ensuing. 

"On Thursday, November 14, 1799, the Kentucky House of Repre- 
sentatives, Mr. Desha in the chair, having had under consideration the 
resolutions of the several State Legislatures above referred to, on the subject 
of the alien and sedition laws, unanimously adopted the following, which the 
Senate, on the 22d, concurred in: 

" The representatives of the good people of this Commonwealth, in Gen- 
eral Assembly convened, having maturely considered the answers of sundry 
States in the Union to their resolutions passed at the last session, respecting 
certain unconstitutional laws of Congress, commonly called the alien and 
sedition laws, would be faithless, indeed, to themselves, and to those they 
represent, were they silently to acquiesce in the principles and doctrines 
attempted to be maintained in all those answers, that of Virginia only ex- 
cepted. To again enter the field of argument, and attempt more fully or 
forcibly to expose the unconstitutionality of those obnoxious laws, would, it 
is apprehended, be as unnecessary as unavailing. We can not, however, 
but lament that, in the discussion of those interesting subjects, by sundry 
of the Legislatures of our sister States, unfounded suggestions and uncandid 
insinuations, derogatory of the true character and principles of the good 
people of this Commonwealth, have been substituted in place of fair reason- 
ing and sound argument. Our opinions of these alarming measures of the 
General Government, together with our reasons for those opinions, were 
detailed with decency and with temper, and submitted to the discussion 
and judgment of our fellow-citizens throughout the Union. Whether the 
like decency and temper have been observed in the answers of most of 
those States who have denied or attempted to obviate the great truths con- 
tained in those resolutions, we have now only to submit to a candid world. 
Faithful to the true principles of the Federal Union, unconscious of any 
designs to disturb the harmony of that Union, and anxious only to escape 
the fangs of despotism, the good people of this Commonwealth are regard- 
less of censure or calumniation. Lest, however, the silence of this Com- 
monwealth should be construed into an acquiescence in the doctrines and 
principles advanced and attempted to be maintained by the said answers, 
or lest those of our fellow-citizens throughout the Union, who so widely 
differ from us on those important subjects, should be deluded by the expec- 
tation that we shall be deterred from what we conceive our duty, or shrink 
from the principles contained in those resolutions; therefore, 

'•'•Resolved, That this Commonwealth considers the Federal Union, 
upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as con- 
ducive to the liberty and happiness of the several States ; that it does now 




VIRGINIA ALSO ENTERS A PROTEST. 353 

unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that comj)act, 
agreeably to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to 
seek its dissolution; that if those who administer the General Government 
be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total dis- 
regard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation 
of the State governments, and the erection upon their ruins of a general 
consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence; that the prin- 
ciple and construction contended for by sundry of the State Legislatures — 
that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of th^ 
powers delegated to it — stop nothing short of despotism ; since the dis-cretiof^ 
of those who administer the Government, and not the Constitution, would 
be the measure of their powers; that the several States who formed that \r\- 
strument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable righjt 
to judge of its infraction, and that a nullification by those sovereignties of 
all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful 
remedy; that this Commonwealth does, upon the most deliberate recon- 
sideration, declare that the said alien and sedition laws are, in their opinion, 
palpable violations of said Constitution; and however cheerfully it may bp 
disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of sister States in matters of 
ordinary or doubtful policy, yet in momentous regulations like the present, 
which so vitally wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a 
silent acquiescence as highly criminal; that, although this Commonwealth^ 
as a party of the Federal compact, will bow to the laws of the Union, y^t 
it does at the same time declare that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, 
cease to oppose, in a constitutional manner, every attempt, from what 
quarter soever offered, to violate that compact. Aad, finally, in order that 
no pretexts or arguments may be drawn from a supposed acquiescence on 
the part of this Commonwealth in the constitutionality of those laws, and be 
thereby used as precedents for similar future violations of the Federal com- 
pact, this Commonwealth does now enter against them its solemn protest. 
'•'Attest: Thomas Toi>d, Cle7-k House Representatives. 

"In Senate, November 22, 1799. Read and concurred in. 

'■'■Attest: BucKNER Thruston, Clerk Senate." 

^ In the meager debate on the first resolutions, William Murray, of Franks 

lin, contended that they set forth doctrines not warranted in the terms of 

the Constitution of the United States, and with subtle reasoning. Said he, 

1- "This Constitution was not merely a covenant between integral States, but 

( a compact between individuals composing these States. Accordingly, the 

.) Constitution begins with this form of expression, 'We, the people of the 

k United States,' and not 'We, the thirteen States of America.' The inter- 

' pretation of the Constitution of the United States is not a matter for legis- 

|i lative determination, but clearly left to the decision of the courts having 

i jurisdiction." 

I Butler, p. 286-7. 

23 



354 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

On the part of John Breckinridge, it was replied: "I consider the co- 
States to be alone parties to the Federal compact, and solely authorized to 
judge in the last resort of the power exercised under the compact. Con- 
gress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, and subject, 
as to its assumption of power, to the final judgment of these by whom, and 
for whose use, itself and its powers were all created. If, upon the repre-i 
sentation of the States from whom they derive their powers, they should! 
nevertheless attempt to enforce them, I hesitate not to declare it as my' 
opinion, that it is then the right and duty of the several States to nullify, 
those acts, and protect their citizens from their operation." I 

It is a fact of profound significance that the author of the Declaration 
of Independence, and the author of these resolutions of interpretation, was 
the same person, of whose statesmanship and patriotism no pen of sacrilege 
would dare to question. Of the same school of political doctrine was John 
C. Calhoun, no less gifted and patriotic, who succeeded Jefferson as the 
exponent and leader of the great and powerful party of discipleship who 
accepted the teachings of these masterly spirits. The student of our polit- 
ical history will pause with curious wonder, to inquire how it was possible 
that a Hamilton and a Webster on the one side, and a Jefferson and a 
Calhoun upon the other, could so differently and diversely construe the 
instrument of common adoption for the Union, and which alone must be 
the chart and guide of Federal administration. The Federal Constitution 
was the reactionary product of the monarchical despotisms of Europe, the 
centralism and tyrannies of which were only the more hideous and repug- 
nant, in the light of expanding intelligence and a pervading sense of per- 
sonal rights. Since the war for independence, the States had been but little 
restrained in the exercise of their sovereignties. The school of statesmen, 
of which Jefferson was the great master, believed and taught that in the 
Federal compact only so much of sovereignty and jurisdiction should be 
conceded as were set forth in the express terms of the Constitution. All 
else were reserved to the States, or to the people, with whom all sovereignty 
is originally vested. They beheld the same danger in the ascendancy of 
a sectional or interested majority that existed in the centralism of a mon- 
archy. 

The North-eastern States composed a majority in the Government; and 
being more a commercial and manufacturing people, had interests some- 
what different from their agricultural neighbors of the South. Already, the 
majority in Congress had shown a crafty disregard of the interests of the 
minority, by an effort to barter away the right of navigation on the Missis- 
sippi river, by years of neglect to provide for the defense of the western 
borders against Indian hostilities, and now by the passage of the repugnant 
alien and sedition laws, not less odious to the spirit of the Constitution than 
avowed nullification. Intensely jealous of encroachment by the Federal 
Government on what were believed to be the rights of the States and indi- 



THE RESOLUTIONS UNDISTURBED UNTIL 1 833. 355 

viduals, the resolutions of '98, on the part of Virginia and Kentucky, were 
resistant protests against the first manifestations of power assumed and im- 
pHed, but not stated, in the terms of the Constitution. 

We readily concede the mutually patriotic motives, and doubt if any 
realized the germ of evil that was contained in the doctrine of nullification, 
in its practical working in the action of South Carolina, years after, and in 
the application, more recently, of the secession of a number of States from 
the Union, and the consequent civil war that convulsed the country. 

1 Mr. Madison says of the Virginia resolutions : "It is worthy of remark 
and explanatory of the intentions of the Legislature, that the words, ' not law, 
but utterly null and void, and of no force and effect,' which had followed, 

■ in one of the resolutions, the word unconstitutional, were struck out by 
common consent." 

These resolutions remained on record, undisturbed, until 1833. On the 
2d of February of that year, in answer to the nullification acts of South 
> Carolina, resolutions were passed by the Kentucky Legislature, of which 
! the following extract forms the essence: "That so long as the present Con- 
1 stitution remains unaltered, the legislative enactments of the constituted 
; authorities of the United States can only be repealed by the authorities that 
.' made them; and if not repealed, can in no wise be finally and authorita- 
' tively abrogated or annulled, than by the sentence of the Federal judiciary 
. •declaring their unconstitutionality; that those enactments, subject only to 
•i be repealed or declared null, and treaties made by the United States, are 
; supreme laws of the land ; that no State of this Union has any constitutional 

■ right or power to nullify any such enactment or treaty, or to contravene 
' them, or to obstruct their execution ; that it is the duty of the president of 
J the United States, a bounden, solemn duty, to take care that these enact- 
ments and treaties be faithfully executed, observed, and fulfilled; and we 

• receive, with unfeigned and cordial approbation, the pledge which the presi- 
1' dent has given to the nation in his late proclamation, that he will perform 

this high and solemn duty." 

This doctrine of nullification, and the right of the protesting State to find 
ji its remedy within its own jurisdiction, must have been asserted by its authors, 

with a full consciousness that it implied, in its practical enforcement, the 
I' principle of anarchy within, or the disintegration of the Federal Union with- 
": out, as the better, in a choice of evils between this and centralism. These 

■ extreme views are to be judged of in the light of the circumstances of the 
I age and conditions within which they were then announced. They do not 

■ raise a question of patriotic motive, but evince to us the intense jealousy 

■ with which the fathers of the republic guarded the tender plant of liberty 
f. against the devouring rapacity of despotism, which, hydra-headed, might 

become a monster of danger in the embodiment of a majority, as well as in 
the forms of monarchy. Very naturally, and without the testimony of later 

I Letter to Everett, Book of the Constitution, p. 87. 



35^ HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

experience, they did not give due consideration and significance to the fact 
that, in the swell-tide of awakened sentiment for personal and civil liberty 
that was pervading this country and threatening to inundate Europe, as 
great a danger lurked in the excessive diffusion of power among the subject 
masses, and the tendency, under undue influences, to licentious use of the 
same. From this source, our republic may anticipate no less trouble and 
danger than from centralism, against which the argus-eyed vigilance of 
popular intelligence is ever directed. There is little doubt but that the 
action of "Virginia and Kentucky, ominous of future trouble in certain con- 
tingencies, exerted a marked and healthy influence on the public sentiment 
of the entire country for the time, in arresting and turning back the tendency 
to aggrandizement of power on the part of the majority in Congress, on a 
loose and latitudinarian construction of the Constitution. It made a pro- 
found and lasting impression on the political sentiment of the nation, as was 
evinced in the election of Democratic administrations for the succeeding 
twenty-four years, in the persons of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. 

We quote a just and true comment on this action from Shaler's Kentucky 
Commonwealth : 

''All that was before the minds of men was a new and very debatable 
instrument, concerning whose meaning there was naturally great difference 
of opinion. The Kentucky resolutions were the first proclamation of the 
great discussion destined to be continued for two generations, to be in the 
end decided, as it could only be decided, by a third in the most famous 
civil struggle of all time. That the resolutions were intended only as the 
expression of a sentiment, and not as the basis for any contemplated action, 
is shown by the previous and succeeding course of politics in the State. It 
would be a distortion of history to look upon this action as though it had 
been taken in i860. It was, in fact, only a caveat directed against the 
course of a party disposed to take an even more unconstitutional view of 
the Union than was held by those who voted for the resolutions." 

Among the suffering victims to defective land titles, pursued and perse- 
cuted by the land-sharks who infested the country, and with their arts and 
rogueries made it their business to hunt up elder and adverse claims, or to 
invalidate those that might be shown to be defective, was Daniel Boone, 
now passing the sere autumn of life, and into the frosty chill of its wintry 
days. Innocent of guile himself, and suspecting none in others, the simple 
and trusting old woodsman had contented himself with such titles to land as 
were issued to him after the subtle and treacherous forms of the day. One 
tract after another passed from his possession, and last among them a beau- 
tiful farm in the Bluegrass section, not far from Boonesborough. He keenly 
felt the injustice and ingratitude of his harsh fortune; and finally, discour- 
aged and despairing, he determined to exile himself forever from the land 
which he had made so many sacrifices to conquer from the savage foe, and 
to subdue to the peaceful and happy pursuits of civilization. The fruitage 



boone's misfortunes. 357 

[i of all his work, now at ripe harvest time, like the apples of Sodom, had 

■ turned to ashes on the lips that would vainly taste. 

1 With family and worldly possessions, he transferred his habitation to a 
I new home in Virginia, near the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Here he 
<< remained for several years, cultivating a farm, raising stock, and at proper 
i seasons engaging in his favorite sport of hunting. In 1795 o^ ^797? we find 
;; him removed again to the far West, and located in Missouri, then upper 
: Louisiana, in the Femme Osage settlement, in the district of St. Charles, 
f fifty miles west of St. Louis. The country of this last retreat belonged to 
i- Spain, and the governor of the same had given him assurance that an ample 
portion should be given to him and his family. A commission was issued 
' appointing him commandant or syndic of the district in which he lived. 
|- The duties of his office were both military and civil, and he continued to 
i discharge them until the transfer of the territory to the Lhiited States, in 
' 1803. In consideration of his services, over eight thousand acres of land 
j were given Boone under Spanish grant, and all seemed propitious for the 
' founding of a magnificent estate, with all the comforts of home surround- 
ings, once more. But the Nemesis of misfortune again followed the careless 
' and inattentive habits of the old pioneer. Some formalities were neglected 

■ in securing the title, and so when, years after, the commissioners of the 
^ United States appointed to decide on claims were called on to examine 
'"■ that of Boone, they felt constrained to reject it for want of the observance 

■ -of legal forms. 

!^ There is a romantic account of Boone residing in Greenup county in the 
' -closing years of the century, given by Collins : He made his home where 
- Riverton now stands, over one mile above Greenupsburg, on the bank of 
-the Ohio. In March, 1857, Mr. Warnock, then seventy-nine years old, 
made oath that in the fall of 1799 he saw Daniel Boone, at a point one or 
two miles above the mouth of Little Sandy river, cut down a tree out of 
which to make a canoe, and that, soon after, he saw Boone in the canoe 
'' when he started for his new home in Missouri. These apparently-conflicting 
" statements of different historians may be reconciled in the probability that 
Boone may have tarried for some time in Greenup county on his way from 
the Kanawha to Missouri, or that, after visiting Missouri, following the pas- 
' sion of his restless nature, he may have returned to Kentucky and lived for 
a time on the Ohio, at the site of Riverton, and finally removed to Missouri 
about 1800. 
' In his last adopted home, Boone found a congenial life and surroundings. 
His sons and sons-in-law settled around him in the same country. The 
* wilds of nature gratified the longings of the veteran forester, and here he 
indulged to his heart's content in hunting the buffalo, the deer, and the 
bear, and in trapping the beaver. With the help at hand, his land was cul- 
tivated, and produced in abundance the grain, the vegetables, and the fruits 

I Peck's Life of Boone ; Perkins' Western Annals. 



358 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

which supplied the wants of all. His duties as syndic were light, being 
much the same in importance as those of our magistrate now, and gave him 
leisure to pursue the congenial habits of old. He would go off many miles 
from home on his hunting excursions, build his camp, and remain for days 
or weeks. Sometimes a friend accompanied him, but most generally a col- 
ored servant boy who had learned to know his ways and wants. On one 
occasion, he fell extremely ill in camp, with no help nigh but his faithful 
servant boy. ^He pointed out to the latter a place where he wished to be 
buried, in case he should die in camp, and also gave him directions about 
his burial, and the disposal of his rifle, blankets, and peltry. 

In 18 1 2, Boone sent a petition to Congress, praying for a confirmation 
of his Spanish title to lands. The Legislature of Kentucky joined in this 
petition in the following : 

'■'•Resolved, That our senators in Congress be requested to use their ex- 
ertions to procure a grant of land in the territory of Missouri to Daniel 
Boone — either the land granted him by the Spanish Government or such 
quantity in such place as shall be deemed most advisable, by way of dona- 
tion." 

The usual dallying of long delay followed this, during which time Mrs. 
Boone, the partner of his life, died at the age of seventy-six years, a be- 
reavement that fell with a chill of gloom over the spirits of the venerable 
pioneer. Congress finally granted about one-tenth the amount of land asked 
for, to which he was entided in common with all other emigrants. 

Before the death of his wife, Boone gave up his hunting expeditions, the 
feebleness of old age disqualifying him for the exposure and toils. He made 
his home in his later years with his daughter, Mrs. Callaway, visiting his 
other children at times, by whom and his grandchildren he was greatly be- 
loved. His time was usefully spent in extreme old age in making powder- 
horns for his grandchildren, neighbors, and friends, in repairing rifles, and 
in other descriptions of handicraft, which he did with neatness and style of 
finish. 

Early in September, 1820, Boone had an attack of fever, and after a lin- 
gering illness of some two or three weeks, died on the 26th day of the 
month, in the eighty-sixth year of his life, and was buried by the side of his 
wife, in a cofiin which he had some years before prepared for the event. The 
Legislature of Missouri passed resolutions that its members wear the badge 
of mourning for twenty days. In 1845, the remains of Daniel Boone and 
wife were removed and deposited in the cemetery at Frankfort, KentuckVr 
followed by a splendid pageant of kindred and citizens in honor of the 
hero's memory. Had Kentucky been as just and generous to the living 
Boone as she was to the memory of the dead hero, she might have afforded 
him the consolation and pride of spending his last days amidst the friends 
and scenes of his best manhood. 

I Peck's Life of Roone. 



A DIRGE FOR THE PIONEER. 



359 



A dirge for the brave old pioneer ! 

Knight-errant of the wood! 
Calmly beneath the green sod here, 

He rests from field and flood. 
The war-whoop and the panther's screams 

No more his soul shall rouse, 
For well the aged hunter dreams 

Beside his good old spouse. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

Hushed now his rifle's peal — 
The dews of many a vanish'd year 

Are on his rusted steel ; 
His horn and pouch lie mouldering 

Upon the cabin door — 
The elk rests by the salted spring, 

Nor flees the fierce wild boar. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

Old Druid of the West ! 
His off"ering was the fleet wild deer; 

His shrine the mountain's crest. 
Within his wildwood temple's space 

An empire's towers nod, 
Where erst, alone of all his race, 

He knelt to nature's God. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

Columbus of the land! 
Who guided freedom's proud career 

Beyond the conquer'd strand, 
And gave her pilgrim's sons a home 

No monarch's step profanes, 
Free as the chainless winds that roam 

Upon its boundless plains. 



A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

The muffled drum resound! 
A warrior is slumb'ring here 

Beneath his battle-ground. 
For not alone with beast of prey 

The bloody strife he waged, 
Foremost where'er the deadly fray 

Of savage combat raged. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer ! 

A dirge for his old spouse ! 
For her who blest his forest cheer, 

And kept his birchen house. 
Now soundly by her chieftain may 

The brave old dame sleep on. 
The red man's step is far away, 

The wolf's dread howl is gone. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

His pilgrimage is done ; 
He hunts no more the grizzly bear, 

About the setting sun. 
Weary at last of chase and life. 

He laid him here to rest. 
Nor recks he now what sport or strife 

Would tempt him further West. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

The patriarch of his tribe! 
He sleeps, no pompous pile marks where. 

No lines his deeds describe; 
They raised no stone above him here, 

Nor carved his deathless name — 
An empire is his sepulcher. 

His epitaph is fame. — O'' Hara. - 



^ Boone appeared to have considered love to mankind, reverence to the 
Supreme Being, deHght in His works, and constant usefulness, as the legiti- 
mate ends of life. He was one of the purest and noblest of the pioneers 
of the West. Regarding himself as an instrument in the hands of Providence 
for accomplishing great purposes, he was, nevertheless, always modest and 
unassuming, never seeking distinction, but always accepting the post of duty 
and danger. Asa military leader he was remarkable for prudence, coolness, 
bravery, and imperturbable self-possession. His knowledge of Indian char- 
acter enabled him to divine their intentions and baffle their best laid plans ; 
and yet, he was a great favorite with them. 

;, Of General George Rogers Clark, the greatest military genius that figures 
in the early history of Kentucky, we have for years been silent, since the 
hero of the North-west ceased himself to be an actor in the last scenes of 



I Hartley's Life of Boone, p. 332. 



360 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the tragic drama of the pioneer age of Kentucky. Charity would fain 
drop the mantle over the blended faults and misfortunes of one more of the 
countless great and gifted many who have fallen victims to the demon of 
intemperance, if the faithfulness of history permitted. Of his last days, a 
friendly and admiring eulogist pathetically says : ^ " The great work of his life 
was done, and done thoroughly. He was still barely twenty-seven years of 
age. He was made a major-general ; led a number of successful expeditions 
against hostile tribes of Indians, and one against Detroit, which proved 
abortive by desertions ; and, finally, he settled in the home of his nephew, 
Colonel Croghan, at Locust Grove, about eight miles above this city on the 
river road. 

"So far the story is all pleasing. But time brings change. A hero in war, 
peace fell upon him like a blight. He became intemperate and paralyzed. 
The enormous land bounties, which had long before been voted him by 
the Virginia Assembly for his public services, were for years withheld from 
him, and he left helpless and penniless upon the bounty of his kinsmen. The 
strong, dashing young soldier decayed away as he approached old age, morti- 
fied but proud. Day after day, year after year, he sat meditating on the 
glories of the past, the ingratitude of the present, and the assured grandeur 
of the future. His surgeon required the amputation of his right leg. 'All 
right,' said he; 'bring in the boy of the regiment and let him beat the drum.' 
What a scene that must have been, the old warrior with his mouth firm set, 
the surgeon sawing his leg off above the knee, and the drummer-boy beating 
as for his life, like he did when he led the victorious little army through the 
floods of the Wabash. The old spirit came back at times, and sat in the 
ruins of the old temple. 

"When decrepitude and death were closing fast upon him, there came into 
his room one day, leading a party of friends, an eloquent representative of 
the State of Virginia to present him a jeweled sword voted by the Virginia 
Assembly in consideration of his gallant and invaluable services to the State 
and to the country. While his praise was being eloquently worded the old 
man listened with his eyes fixed upon the fire, then drew himself up in his 
chair, and said : 'Young man, go tell Virginia that when she needed a sword 
I found one. Now, I want bread.' And when that sword was returned, re- 
jected, and with his just rebuke, the Virginia Assembly neglected no longer 
to make good its broken promises of land to Clark and the gallant men who 
followed him. But the worn-out old soldier lived but a little while longer, 
and in February, 1818, he died and was buried at Locust Grove. There 
for over half a century, his bones lay, with hardly a man able to mark the 
spot. They now rest beneath a plain headstone in Cave Hill, while all 
around them the country, which he entered a wild wilderness and won for us, 
is becoming the heart-center of civilization destined to be the glory of cen- 
turies to come." 

I Bodley's Address. 



M 



SIMON Kenton's fate. 361 

Of Simon Kenton, a faithful historian sa3's : i"The crafty offsprings of 

peace, who slept in the lap of ease and security, while this noble pioneer 

was enduring the hardships of the wilderness, and braving the gauntlet and 

stake, and the tomahawk of the Indians to redeem the soil of the West, 

crept in when the fight, and toil, and danger were past, and by dishonorable 

trick, miserable technicality, and cunning procedure, wrested the possessions 

bought at such a terrible price from the gallant, unlettered, simple-hearted 

: man, unversed in the rascality of civilization. He lost his lands, acre after 

*- acre, the superior skill of the speculator prevailing over the simplicity and 

ignorance of the hunter. What a burning, deep disgrace to the West, that 

the hero who had suffered so much and fought so well to win the soil of his 

:' glorious cane-land from the savage should, when the contest was ended, be 

* compelled to leave it to those who never struck a blow in its defense ! To- 
1; gather with Boone and numerous other brave old frontier men, who bore the 

* heat and burden of the day, Kenton, like an old shoe, was kicked aside 
I' when he was no longer of any use, or had become too antiquated for the 
i fashion of the times. Kentucky treated her earliest and staunchest defenders 

- scarcely so well as they treated their dogs — after running down the game, 
!' she denied them the very offal. 

' "The fate of General Simon Kenton was still harder than that of the other 
. simple-hearted fathers of the West. His body was taken for debt upon the 
f covenants in deeds to lands, which he had, in effect, given away, and for 
k twelve months he was imprisoned, upon the very spot where he first built his 
! cabin in 1775, where he planted the first corn ever planted on the north of the 

* Kentucky river by the hands of any white man, where he ranged the path- 
less forest in freedom and safety, where he subsequently erected his foremost 
station house, and batded the Indians in a hundred encounters, and, nearly 

* alone, endured the hardships of the wilderness, while those who then reaped 

■ the fruits of his former sufferings were yet unborn, or dwelt afar in the lap 

- of peace and plenty. 

f "In 1799, beggared by law-suits and losses, he moved into Ohio, and set- 

|- tied in Urbana. He was no longer young, and the prospect of spending his 

i" old age in independence, surrounded by plenty and comfort, which lightened 

the toil and sufferings of his youth, was now succeeded by cheerless anticipa- 

■ tions of poverty and neglect. Thus, after thirty years of the prime of his life, 
('spent faithfully in the cause of Kentucky and the West, all that remained to 
" him was the recollection of his services, and a cabin in the wilderness of 
' Ohio. He himself never repined, and such was his exalted patriotism, that 

he would not suffer others to upbraid his country in his presence, without 
' expressing a degree of anger altogether foreign to his usual mild and amiable 

* manner. It never occurred to his ingenuous mind that his country could 
treat anybody, much less him, with neglect, and his devotion and patriot- 
ism continued to the last unimpaired. 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 452. 



362 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

"In 1805, he was elected a brigadier-general in the Ohio militia, and in 
181 o he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is a consoling fact, that 
nearly all the old fathers of the West devoted the evening of their stormy- 
lives to the service of their Maker, and died in the triumph of the Christian 
faith. In 18 13, the gallant old man joined the Kentucky troops under Gov- 
ernor Shelby, into whose family he was admitted as a privileged member, 
and was in the battle of the Thames. This was his last battle, and from it 
the old hero returned to obscurity and poverty in his humble cabin in the 
woods. He remained in Urbana till 1820, when he moved to the head of 
Mad river, Logan county, Ohio, in sight of Wapakoneta, where he had been 
tied to the stake by the Indians when a prisoner in their hands. Here he was 
harassed by judgments and executions from Kentucky, and to prevent being 
driven from his cabin by his white brethren, as formerly by the savages, to 
the forest for a shelter, he was compelled to have some land entered in the 
name of his wife and children. He still had many tracts of mountain land 
in Kentucky of little value, which, however, were forfeited to the State for 
taxes. In 1824, then seventy years of age, he undertook a journey to 
Frankfort, in tattered garments and on a sorry horse, to endeavor to get the 
Legislature, then in session, to release the claim of the State on his mount- 
ain lands. 

" Here, where he had roved in an unbroken wilderness in the early day, 
now stood a flourishing city, but he walked up and down its streets, an ob- 
ject of curiosity to the boys, a stranger, recognized by no one. A new 
generation had arisen to people and possess the land which he had defended, 
and his old friends and companions were gone. At length General Fletcher, 
from Bath county, saw and knew him, and by his means the old pioneer 
was clothed in a decent suit, and entertained in a kind and becoming man- 
ner. When it became known that Simon Kenton was in the town, numbers 
assembled to see the celebrated hunter and warrior, and testify their regard 
for him. He was taken to the capitol and placed in the speaker's chair; and 
there was introduced the second great adventurer of the West, to a crowded 
assembly of legislators, judges, officers of the government, and citizens. 
This the simple-hearted old man was wont to call the proudest day of his 
life. His lands sold for taxes were at once released; and by the exertions 
of friends in Congress, shortly after, a pension of two hundred and forty 
dollars a year was obtained for him, securing his old age from absolute want. 
Without further reward from the Government, or notice from his fellow- 
citizens. General Kenton lived in his quiet and obscure home, to the age of 
eighty-one. On the 29th of April, 1836, in sight of the place where the 
Indians proposed to burn him at the stake, he breathed his last, surrounded 
by his family and neighbors, and supported by the consolations of the Gos- 
pel." 

We can easily see how unfit for civilized life were Boone and Kenton, 
suddenly transposed "from aM'almost savage state of society, unsophisticated, 



J 



DISCONTENT AMONG THE KENTUCKIANS. 363 

and simple-minded as they were. The questions of property, regulated by 
,;law, and liberty, and policy, in their profound subdeties, were to them as 
sealed books, which they had never studied. For more than twenty years, 
,)batUing with savages, and enduring bitter privations with constant and 
.necessary activity, they lived in the free wilderness, where action was unfet- 
tered by law, and where property was not controlled by form and techni- 
i cality, but rested on the natural and broader foundations of justice and 
■convenience. They knew how to beat back the invader of their soil, to 
tbear down a foe in the field, or circumvent him by strategem, or in ambush. 
tBut they knew not how to swindle a neighbor out of his acres, by declara- 
tion, demurrer, plea, and replication, and all the scientific pomp of chicanery. 
(They knew not how damages could solve a private injury, or a personal 
wrong. Hence, in the broad and glorious light of civilization, they were 
;.ingenuous, simple, or stupid, > as it may be called, and this made them an 
.easy prey to unscrupulous speculators or designing tricksters. Certain it is, 
:that myriads arose to prey upon the simple patriarchs of the forest, and to 
..drive them farther out into the wilderness, once more to brave its toils and 
1 perils, rather than to endure man's inhumanity to man, under civilization. 
t There was evidently a growing discontent with a number of the pro- 
visions and with the workings of the first constitution of the State of 1792. 
-By virtue of an act of the previous Legislature, the people voted upon the 
.question of calling a convention for the enactment of a new one in 1797. 
i.Of twenty-one counties in the State, there were five that made no return. 
5. Though out of nine thousand eight hundred and fourteen votes in the coun- 
•ties reporting, five thousand four hundred and forty-six were for, and but 
four hundred and forty votes against, the call, yet the failure of the five 
^delinquent counties to report defeated the requisite constitutional majority, 
-and made abortive the proceeding. 

!, At the next legislative session, a similar bill passed the House for a second 

^vote on the question of the election of 1798, but was defeated in the Senate. 

(A feeling of irritation and impatience increased among the people, until the 

;Suggestion was made, and very generally adopted, that the people vote an 

instruction upon their legislators, at the next assembling, to call a constitu- 

,, tional convention, and provide for the election of delegates thereto at the 

■succeeding election. There were various and general discussions in the 

newspapers, and before the people in debate, in relation to the convention. 

iThe cry went out against an aristocratic Senate chosen by electors, and not 

;by the people, who had the power of filling vacancies in their own body. 

iThe same electors also chose the governor, and thus both these important 

■ factors at the head of government were too independent, and too far re- 

I moved from responsibility to the people. Other objections were urged with 

zeal, not always temperate. The country became much agitated; and at 

the election of members to the Legislature, the ballots were also cast both 

vfor and against a convention. The result was much like that in the first 



364 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

instance. Ten counties failed to report, and, though the aggregate majority 
in those that did was large, the constitutional majority was wanting. The 
sentiment of the people, however, was ascertained; and at the assembhng 
of the Legislature, a two-thirds vote was obtained from both houses, which, 
by the terms of the constitution, authorized the convention to meet for the 
enactment of another fundamental law for Kentucky. 

Thus, after seven years from the first, the second constitutional conven- 
tion met on the 22d of July, 1799, and elected Alexander C. Bullitt, of 
Jefferson county, president, and Thomas Todd, secretary. 

No report of the debates of the body is known to exist, although proposals 
for taking down and publishing them are contained in the newspapers of the 
day. The various points of division can not, therefore, be stated; but as a 
substitute for this narration, a brief analysis of the important alterations in 
the government by the new constitution will be offered. The first radical 
change was the constitution of the Senate and executive, the former of 
which, instead of being elected by a college of electors, was distributed 
among a certain number of senatorial districts, not less than twenty-four, 
and an additional senator to be chosen for every three representatives which 
shall be elected above fifty-eight. One-fourth of this body was renewed 
every year, so that, after the first three years, the senators held their offices 
for four years. 

The governor, instead of being elected by the same college of electors as 
the Senate, was chosen every four years by the voters directly, but, instead 
of possessing the effectual negative of the old constitution, he was overruled, 
on disapproving a law, by a simple majority of all the members elected. 
Thus was the executive responsibility swallowed up by the Legislature, and 
the representative of the whole Commonwealth was scarcely capable of 
exercising any effectual check in behalf of the people over the mistakes inci- 
dent to all popular bodies, and which are so usefully subjected to the re- 
examination of the community, as well as to that of their representatives, 
by an efficient veto. The executive veto was calculated to bring that de- 
partment of the government into contempt, by its imperfect powers of 
withstanding the moral force so characteristic of popular bodies. The pat- 
ronage which the governor possessed, in so simple and economical a com- 
munity, furnished a very confined and indirect influence. Most of the offices 
within his gift were irremovable at his pleasure. With these two essential 
alterations, the new constitution was reported, after the labors of twenty- 
seven days, on the 17th of August. It declared the former frame of gov- 
ernment to be in force until the ist of June, 1800, when the new fundamenal 
law of the State was to go into operation. 

It is, the author thinks, a matter of regret that alterations of our consti- 
tution should not be submitted to popular vote by the ordinary Legislature 
whenever two-thirds, or other number beyond such a majority, should think 
them necessary, without prohibiting the assemblage of a convention whenever 



M 



Monroe's recall from France. 365 

substantially and unequivocally required by the people. A provision like 
i' the above, such as is introduced into the constitutions of many other States, 
I is better designed to save the community from the hazard of submitting 

the whole frame of its fundamental law to the ordeal, often so dangerous, of 
[ an unlimited convention. 

! This session closed the legislative functions under the old constitution, 
[' after having added six hundred and fifty laws to the statute book in eight 
' years, rather more than eighty per annum. Whoever attends to the subject 
, will be struck with the frequent changes in the courts, and in the execution 
r of the unsteady laws. Relief, also, of one kind or other, either to private 

■ individuals who should have been left to seek it in a court of law or equity, 
or to public functionaries who had violated the laws and ran to the Legis- 

' lature to cover their ignorance or design from the consequences, by legalizing 
" what was illegally done, makes a figure in the code ; besides those acts of 

direct interference between creditor and debtor, which, taken together, show 
[' a considerable moral laxity of law-makers, and, taken separately, furnish 
' precedents for every species of irregular and incorrect legislation. Not 

that there were no good laws, for, indeed, there were many. But so radical 
[ and licentious was the disposition to change that but few acts escaped, di- 

■ rectly or indirectly, the effects of legislative ignorance, malice, partiality, or 
■prejudice. Such were the reflections of Marshall. 

' The sympathy of the people of Kentucky for the French was, in 1797 
* and after, put to the severest test. The relations of the latter and our own 
; Government were becoming strained. The late treaty with Great Britain 
was the cause of much chagrin and umbrage, not only to Frenchmen, but 
' to their hosts of friends in the United States. It was alleged to be in bad 
faith, after the partialities shown by France and the many expressions of as- 
surance of return of favors when the emergency of need might require. In 

■ the background of all this was the intense hatred and malediction of Eng- 
land for her bad faith in carrying out the provisions of the peace treaty of 
1783, and for her atrocious inhumanity in inciting Indian barbarities on the 

" borders while affecting to be at peace. James Monroe was superseded by 
Charles Pinckney as minister to France. The Government, with much 
hauteur, refused to receive him, and thus shut the door to the friendly over^ 
tures intended. Indeed, this French question had entered with lively interest 

' into the presidential contest, and the election of Mr. Adams was a sore dis- 

■ appointment to the people of that .nation. 

An extra session of Congress was called for the 15th of June, 1797, and 
in the president's message, adverting to the speech of the president of the 
French Directory on the departure of Minister Monroe, he says: "Senti- 
ments are disclosed more alarming than the refusal of a minister, because 
more dangerous to our independence and union, and at the same time studi- 
ously marked with indignities toward the Government of the United States." 
President Adams, attempting further friendly negotiations, instituted the com- 



366 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

mission of Messrs. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, with instructions to use 
all proper efforts toward conciliation. The French cabinet haughtily refused 
to receive them. ^ Great forbearance was exercised to avoid or postpone a 
declaration of war. Yet, a state of war actually existed, and the dilemma 
of the Government was painful. French ships of war were depredating on 
American commerce, and decrees were issued by the French Directory sub- 
jecting to seizure all American vessels having on board British goods or 
products, or which had sailed from British ports. 

In retaliation and defense, an act of Congress suspended commercial in- 
tercourse between the United States and France and her possessions. Mer- 
chant vessels were authorized to be armed in their voyages to the West Indies 
or Europe. The president was empowered to increase the standing army 
and the navy by large additions. Pending these belligerent threatenings, 
parties divided in Kentucky, the Democratic still in sympathy with their old 
friends and allies, and the Federal supporting the administration of Adams. 
Many assemblies passed resolutions of the tenor of the day, of which the 
following at a Lexington meeting are a sample : 

"Resolved, That the present war with France is impolitic, unnecessary, 
and unjust, inasmuch as the means of reconciliation have not been unremit- 
tingly and sincerely pursued, hostilities having been unauthorized against 
France by law while a negotiation was pending. 

''Resolved, That a war with France will only be necessary and proper 
when engaged in for the defense of our territory, and to take any part in the 
present political commotions of Europe will endanger our liberty and inde- 
])endence. Any intimate connection with the corrupt and sinking monarchy 
of England ought to be abhorred and avoided." 

Against this, a meeting of citizens of Mason county presented an address 
to the president, numerously signed, which brought a response of grateful 
encomium, from which address we quote : "We have seen, with the anxiety 
inseparable from the love of our country, the situation of the United States 
under the aggressions of the French nation on our commerce, our rights, and 
our sovereignty. As freemen, we do not hesitate; we will rally around the 
standard of our country and support the constituted authorities. An in- 
sidious enemy shall in vain attempt to divide us from the Government of the 
United States, to the support of which, against any foreign enemy, we pledge 
our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Other similar addresses ac- 
companied this. 

Washington was appointed commander-in-chief and all made ready for 
war, with an impression that France would invade our territory, or attempt 
it. No declaration of war yet came from either side; still, war was begun. 
The United States frigate Constitution, of thirty-eight guns, on February 
19, 1799, fell in with the French frigate La Insurgent, forty guns, and after 
a hot fight of an hour, captured her. On February i, 1800, the Constitu- 

I Statesman's Manual. 



AFRICAN SLAVERY IN KENTUCKY. 367 

tion met the La Vengeance, of fifty-four guns, and after an action of five 
hours, the latter hauled off and escaped, by a favoring squall, after being 
silenced, with a loss of one hundred and sixty killed and wounded. Three 
hundred private American vessels had been armed for self-defense, while 
much damage had been done to American shipping by French vessels. A 
change in the French Government was effected by Napoleon becoming first 
consul. It was intimated that commissioners would now be received at the 
French capital. Messrs. Murray, Ellsworth, and Governor Davis, of North 
Carolina, were appointed such commissioners, and proceeded in November, 
1799, to France. Toward the close of 1800, a treaty was ratified between 
the two countries and further hostilities avoided. 

African slavery, transplanted from the other States, was now deeply 
rooted in the civil and social soil of Kentucky.. From the first immigra- 
tion and settlement of 1775, to this date, slaves often formed a part of the 
family retinue, or swelled the body of colonists, who usually combined for 
mutual safety. In the solitudes of the wilderness, and the isolations of the 
settlements, the intense longings for the society of human kind made the 
companionship of master and household with the colored slaves an essential 
condition to the contentment and happiness of both. If Uncle Ben and 
Black Sam felled the trees for fencing and fuel, plowed the corn-ground, 
or hoed the garden, Mars Tom often bore a hand with them ; and when 
he did not, they knew he was on an Indian scout, or supplying the wants 
of the household with spoils of the hunt, or sharing in some other way the 
diligent toils and exposures incident to the rude life and home. If Aunt 
Dinah or Jenny plied the loom, spun the yarns, or cooked the meals. Mis- 
tress Anna was often pressed to direct and aid, or diligently employed in 
other domestic duties. Together the children played, together they went 
errands, and together they did the lighter w^ork of boys and girls; and if 
sometimes it became necessary, the boys were ever ready to fight for each 
other, almost forgetting the difference of race and color. Conversational 
intercourse, between the females especially, was cheerful and confiding, and 
only restrained by the respectful deference which the slave always mani- 
fested to the master or mistress. Hence, while the relations were civilly and 
socially so distinct, they were mutually confiding and affectionate. The white 
and colored elements were thus pleasantly blended in the household unit, 
ever respecting the differences which nature and fortune had prescribed, 
yet useful and happy in the respective spheres in which they were placed. 
Of these relations we may have to speak further on, and from the personal 
experience and study of a lifetime. 

In 1798, the Legislature passed an act concerning slaves, modifying the 
previous laws to some extent. Good treatment was enjoined upon the 
master, and all contracts between the two positively forbidden. The execu- 
tion of the law was placed under the jurisdiction of the county courts, and 
these were authorized to admonish the master for any ill-treatment toward 



368 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

his servant. If persisted in, the court had the option and power to dis- 
charge the abused slave. Moderate chastisement with stripes, as in the 
punishment of children, was not considered ill-treatment. In this law, white 
and colored being free — but from any cause reduced to servitude — were rec- 
ognized alike. Any purchase of a white servant by a colored man or an 
Indian was prohibited. 

In 1797, the great orator and statesman, Henry Clay, came to make 
Kentucky his adopted home, at the early age of twenty-one years. Among 
his first declaration of principles was an avowed advocacy of the emancipa- 
tion of slaves, and the abolishment of the institution, pending the discus- 
sions of the issues of a constitutional change. There were many persons 
then in the State who were averse to the institution of slavery, from scruples 
of conscience, and from a conviction that it would prove a great social and 
political evil to the country. 

1 In 1792, Rev. David Rice, an eminent pioneer minister of the Presby- 
terian Church, was one of the members of the first constitutional conven- 
tion, at Danville. He introduced and advocated a resolution in that body 
for the gradual extinction of slavery, but without success, though he found 
sympathy and support. 

In 1804, a formidable movement, under the lead of Revs. Tarrent, Bar- 
row, Sutton, Holmes, and other ministers of the Baptist Church, was con- 
certedly made in the same direction. They openly declared for the abolition 
of slavery, alleging that no fellowship should be had with slaveholders, as 
in principle and practice slavery was a sinful and abominable system, fraught 
with peculiar evils and miseries, which every good man should condemn. 
They are known in the records of the times as Emancipators, but styled 
themselves Friends of Humanity. The movement compelled the attention 
of the associations, which passed resolutions, declaring it improper for min- 
isters, churches, or associations to meddle with the question of the emanci- 
pation of slaves, or any other political subject. This gave such offense to 
the Emancipators, that they withdrew from the General Baptist Union, and, 
in 1807, formed an association of their own, called the Licking-Locust As- 
sociation, Friends to Humanity. They did not proselyte with aggressive 
success, and in time died out as a distinct body, seeming to be consumed 
in the intensity of their own zeal. Expressions of hostility from other quar- 
ters signalized a disposition to agitate the question of abolition; but slavery 
had already become an interest and a sentiment among the people of Ken- 
tijcky, too deep-rooted and entwined in every branch and fiber of the Com- 
monwealth, to be dissevered and torn away by anything less than the cyclone 
of civil war. 

I Collins, Vol. II., pp. 419, 460. 



EVENTS OF THE YEAR 180O. 



S69 



CHAPTER XXII. 

(1800.) 



1 Nature and habits of Indians. 

; Described in Captain Smith's narrative. 

From Fort Duquesne to Ohio. 

Adopted by Indians. 

Ceremonies. 

Indian dance and coquetries. 

Cunning arts. 

Smith loses caste. 
: Hunting and fasting. 

, Indian improvidence and indolence. 

, Hospitalities. 

Tontillogo, Smith's brother. 

Endurance of exertion. 

Chasing horses. 

Parental discipline. 
: Tontillogo's squaw. 

. Manetohcoa, the conjurer. 

I Military tactics. 

Contempt of regulars and their methods. 

Smith regains favor. 

Indian compliments. 

Love of whisky. 

Big debauch. 

Religious views. 
I Their god, Owaneeyo. 

Devout old chief. 

Meat supply fails. 

Faith of the Indian. 

Relief at last. 

Religious practices. 

Old chiefs prayer. 

Several Indian dances. 

War-dance of letan. 

Acts the horse-stealer. 

As a husband and dude. 

Indian faith. 

Extremes of character. 

Anecdotes of Wawkaw and party. 

Ferocity of the Indian enemy. 

Burning of Colonel Crawford at the 
stake. 

Nursing and rearing papooses. 



Strapping to a board. 

Experiences and habits of the pioneer 
whites in stockades and cabins. 

Husbandry. 

The hunting season and habits. 

Need of skill and intrigue. 

The house-warming. 

Building cabins. 

Furniture. 

The dance. 

Mechanic arts. 

Hominy block. 

The grater. 

The hand-mill. • 

Deer-skin sifters. 

Tanning leather. 

Utensils for house and farm. 

Imitating birds and beasts. 

Sports. 

Emigrating then and now. 

Happiness in the log-cabin. 

Diet. 

Indian corn. 

Making good corn-bread almost a lost 
art. 

Measures of defense. 

Dangers ever present. 

The constant theme. 

All learned to fight Indians. 

Effect on character. 

Religion in pioneer days. 

The Baptists, the first pioneers. 

Rev. William Hickman. 

John Taylor and others. 

Lewis Craig. 

First Baptist churches. 

First associations. 

Numbers. 

Early Roman Catholic immigrants. 

Settlements in Nelson county. 

Revs. Badin, Fournier, and Salmon. 

Hardships and perils in mission work. 



24 



37° 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Settlement in Woodford county. 
Revs. Haw and Ogden first itinerant 
Methodist ministers appointed. 
Others preceded them. 
Francis Clarit pre-eminent. 
Conference, 1787. 
Bishop's Asbury's visit. 
Results in 1800. 
First Presbyterian work. 
Rev. David Rice's labors. 



Presbytery of Transylvania. 

Churches in Washington county. 

Rev. John Poage Campbell, Archibald 
Cameron, and James Blythe. 

First Episcopal service and church. 

French Atheism in Kentucky. 

Talent and learning. 

Aggressiveness and combativeness of the 
ministers of all denominations. 

Dividing doctrines. 



Much information upon the nature, habits, and character of the Indians 
will be found interspersed through the pioneer period of history, upon which 
to form a general idea of savage life. Yet, upon this essential subject, the 
story of the incidents of the founding of our Commonwealth out of the 
rudest original elements of nature, and of the remarkable people from whora 
its territory was wrested, would be incomplete without a more special and 
coherent description of the wild children of the forest. A picturesque and 
intensely-interesting sketch is condensed from the narrative of Colonel James 
Smith, following the description of the burning at the stake of prisoners taken 
at Braddock's defeat, from which we quote : ^ 

"Two or three days after this shocking spectacle, most of the Indian tribes 
dispersed and returned to their homes, as is usual with them after a great 
and decisive battle. Young Smith was demanded of the French by the tribe 
to whom he belonged, and was immediately surrendered into their hands. 

"The party embarked in canoes, and ascended the Alleghany river as far 
as a small Indian town, about forty miles above Fort Duquesne. There. ^ 
they abandoned their canoes, and, striking into the woods, traveled in af 
western direction, until they arrived at a considerable Indian town, in what 
is now the State of Ohio. This village was called TuUihas, and was situ- 
ated upon the western branch of the Muskingum. During the whole ofJ 
this period, Smith suffered much anxiety from the uncertainty of his future] 
fate, but at this town all doubt was removed. On the morning of his ar- 
rival, the principal members of the tribe gathered around him, and one old 
man, with deep gravity, began to pluck out his hair by the roots, while the 
others looked on in silence, smoking their pipes with great deliberation. 
Smith did not understand the design of this singular ceremony, but sub- 
mitted very patiently to the man's labors, who performed the operation of 
'picking' him with great dexterity, dipping his fingers in ashes occasion- 
ally, in order to take a better hold. In a very few moments Smith's head 
was bald, with the exception of a single tuft upon the center of his crown, 
called the scalp-lock. This was carefully plaited in such a manner as to 
stand upright, and was ornamented with several silver brooches. His ears 
and nose were then bored with equal gravity, and ornamented with ear-rings 



% 



I McClung's Sketches of Western Adventures. 



THE ADOPTION OF JAMES SMITH. 371 

and nose-jewels. He was then ordered to strip ; which being done, his na- 
ked body was painted in various fantastic colors, and a breech-cloth fastened 
around his loins. A belt of wampum was then fastened around his neck, 
and silver bands around his right arm. 

"To all this Smith submitted with much anxiety, being totally ignorant of 
their customs, and dreading lest, like the British prisoners, he had been 
stripped and painted for the stake. His alarm was increased, when an old 
chief arose, took him by the arm, and leading him out into the open air, 
gave three shrill whoops, and was instantly surrounded by every inhabitant 
of the village, warriors, women, and children. The chief then addressed 
the crowd in a long speech, still holding Smith by the hand. When he had 
ceased speaking, he led Smith forward and delivered him into the hands of 
three young Indian girls. These grappling him without ceremony, towed 
him off to the river, which ran at the foot of the hill, dragged him in the 
"water up to his breast, and all three suddenly clapping their hands upon his 
head attempted to put him under. Utterly desperate at the idea of being 
drowned by these young ladies. Smith made a manful resistance; the squaws 
persevered, and a prodigious splashing of the water took place, amidst loud 
peals of laughter from the shore. 

"At length, one of the squaws became alarmed at the furious struggles of 
the young white man, and cried out earnestly several times, ' No hurt you ! 
No hurt you! ' Upon this agreeable intelligence Smith's resistance ceased, 
and these gentle creatures plunged him under the water, and scrubbed him 
from head to foot with equal zeal and perseverance. As soon as they were 
satisfied they led him ashore and presented him to the chief, shivering with 
cold and dripping with water. The Indians then dressed him in a ruffled 
shirt, leggins, and moccasins, variously ornamented, seated him upon a bear- 
skin, and gave him a pipe, tomahawk, tobacco, pouch, flint, and steel. The 
chiefs then took their seats by his side, and smoked for several minutes in 
deep silence, when the eldest delivered a speech, through an interpreter, in 
the following words : ' My son, you are now one of us. Hereafter you 
have nothing to fear. By an ancient custom, you have been adopted in the 
room of a brave man, who has fallen, and every drop of white blood has 
been washed from your veins. We are now your brothers, and are bound 
by our law to love you, to defend you, and to avenge your injuries, as much 
as if you were born in our tribe.' 

"He was then introduced to the members of the family into which he had 
been adopted, and was received by the Avhole of them with great demon- 
strations of regard. In the evening, he received an invitation to a great 
feast, and was there presented with a wooden bowl and spoon, and directed 
to fill the former from a huge kettle of boiled corn and hashed venison. 
The evening concluded with a war dance, and on the next morning the war- 
riors of the tribe assembled, and leaving one or two hunters to provide for 
their families in their absence, the rest marched off for the frontiers of Vir- 



372 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ginia. In leaving the village, the warriors observed the most profound 
silence, with the exception of their leader, who sang the traveling song, as 
it is called ; and when some distance off they discharged their rifles slowly, 
and in regular succession, beginning in front and ending with the rear. As. 
soon as the warriors had left them Smith was invited to a dance, in which 
the Indian boys and young unmarried squaws assembled, and entertained 
themselves for several hours together. They formed in two lines facing 
each other, at the distance of about twenty feet. One of the young men 
held a gourd in his hand, filled with pebbles or leads, which he rattled in 
such a manner as to produce music, and all the dancers, singing in concert, 
with their leader, moved forward in a line until the parties met; then retired, 
and repeated the same exercises for hours without the least variation. 

"Young Smith was merely a spectator in this scene, and his chief enter- 
tainment arose from observing the occasional symptoms of gallantry and 
coquetry which diversified the monotony of the dance. Heads were often 
bent close together as the two lines met, and soft whispers, ogling glances, 
and an occasional gentle tap on the cheek, convinced Smith that Indians 
are not so insensible to the charms of their squaws as has been represented. 
An Indian courtship is somewhat different from ours. With them, all the 
coyness, reserve, and pretty delays are confined to the gentlemen. The 
young squaws are bold, forward, and by no means delicate in urging their 
passions; and a particularly handsome or promising young hunter is often 
reduced to desperate extremities to escape the toils of these female Lotha- 
rios. Smith was treated with the greatest kindness, and was for some time 
particularly distressed by the pressing invitations to eat, which he received 
from all quarters. 

"With the Indians, it is uniformly the custom to invite every visitor to eat 
as soon as he enters the wigwam; and if he refuse they are much offended, 
regarding it as an evidence of hostiHty to them, and contempt for their 
housekeeping. Smith, ignorant of this circumstance, was sometimes pressed 
to eat twenty times a day, and observing their dark and suspicious glances 
when he declined their hospitality, he endeavored at length to satisfy them 
at the risk of stuffing himself to death. Making it a point to eat with all 
who invited him, he soon found himself in great favor. In the course of a 
week after his adoption, an old chief honored him with an invitation to hunt 
with him. Smith readily consented. At the distance of a few miles from 
the village, they discovered a number of buffalo tracks. The old Indian 
regarded them attentively, and followed them with great caution, stopping; 
frequently to listen, and rolling his eyes keenly in every direction. Smith, 
surprised at this singular conduct, asked him why he did not push on more 
rapidly, and endeavor to get a shot. ' Hush ! ' said the Indian, shaking 
his head, ' may be buffalo ! may be Catawba ! ' 

' ' Having at length satisfied himself that they were really buffalo, he pushed 
on more rapidly, and on the way assigned his reasons for his hesitation. He 



k 



SMITH AROUSES CONTEMPT. 373 

•said that the Catawbas had long been at war with his tribe, and were the 
most cunning and wicked nation in the world. That, a few years ago, they 
had secretly approached his camp in the night, and sent out a few of their 
:spies mounted upon buffalo hoofs, who walked around their camp, and then 
returned to the main body. That in the morning, he and his warriors, per- 
•ceiving their tracks, supposed a herd of buffalo to be ahead of them, and 
moved on rapidly in pursuit; that they soon fell into the ambuscade, were 
fired on by the Catawbas, and many of them killed. The Catawbas, how- 
ever, quickly gave way, and were pursued by his young men with great 
•eagerness. But they had taken the precaution to stick a number of slender 
reeds in the grass, sharpened like a pen, and dipped in rattlesnake's poison, 
so that, as his young men pursued them eagerly, most of them were arti- 
ficially snake-bitten, and lamed. That the Catawbas then turned upon them, 
overpowered them, and took the scalps of all who had been lamed by the 
leeds. The old man concluded by shaking his head, and declaring that 
* Catawba was a very bad Indian; a perfect devil for mischief.' 

"Smith, however, was so unfortunate a few days afterward as to fall into 
discredit with these simple people. He had been directed to go out and 
kill some venison for the squaws and children, who had suffered for several 
days, during the absence of the greater part of the warriors. As this was 
the first time that he had been entrusted with so weighty a commission 
alone, he determined to signalize his hunt by an unusual display of skill and 
enterprise. He, therefore, struck out boldly into the woods, and at a few 
miles distance, falling upon a fresh buffalo trail, he pushed on for several 
miles with great eagerness. Despairing, however, of overtaking them, as 
the evening came on he began to retrace his steps, and, as he had taken a 
considerable circuit, he determined to cut across the hills and reach the vil- 
lage by a shorter way. He soon became inextricably involved in the mazes 
of the forest, and dark found him completely bewildered. He fired his gun 
repeatedly, in hopes of being heard, but his signal was unanswered, and he 
wandered through the woods the whole night, totally unable to find his way 
home. Early in the morning, the Indians, probably suspecting him for de- 
sertion, started out in pursuit of him, but, observing the zig-zag manner in 
which the young woodsman had marched, they soon became satisfied of the 
truth, and their anger was changed to laughter and contempt. Smith's rifle 
was taken from him, and a bow and arrow were placed in his hand; and, 
although he was treated with undiminished kindness by all, yet it was evi- 
dent that it was mingled with compassion and contempt for his ignorance of 
the woods. He was now placed under the particular care of Tontillogo, his 
adopted brother and a renowned hunter and warrior. With the aid of his di- 
rections, he soon learned all the mysteries of hunting. He trapped beaver, 
killed deer, bear, and buffalo with great readiness, and in the course of the 
winter rose considerably in reputation. The warriors were still absent, and 
the women and children depended on them entirely for subsistence. Some- 



374 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



times they were three days without food, particularly when the snow became 
hard and the noise which they made in walking on the crust frightened the 
deer, so that they could not come within gun-shot. Their only resource, 
then, was to hunt bear-trees; that is, large hollow trees in which bears lay 
concealed during the winter. The hole is generally from thirty to fifty feet 
from the ground, and they are often compelled to climb up and apply fire in 
order to drive Bruin out, who obstinately maintains his ground until nearly 
stifled with smoke, and then, sneezing, snuffling, and growling, he shows 
himself at the mouth of his hole for a little fresh air. The hunter stations 
himself below, and fires upon him as soon as he appears. Toward spring, 
the warriors generally return, and game is then killed in abundance. 

**We shall here pause in our narrative to mention some traits of Indian 
character and manners which, perhaps, will be interesting to many of our 
readers who have not had opportunities of informing themselves on the sub- 
ject. The lives of the men are passed in alternate action of the most violent 
kind and indolence the most excessive. Nothing but the pressing call of 
hunger will arouse them to much exertion. In the months of August and 
September, when roasting-ears are abundant, they abandon themselves to 
laziness, dancing, and gaming, and can rarely be aroused, even to hunt, so 
long as their corn-fields will furnish them food. During these months, they 
are generally seen lying down in idle contemplation, dancing with their 
squaws, playing at foot-ball, or engaged in a game resembling dice, of which 
they are immoderately fond. War and hunting are their only serious occu- 
pations, and all the drudgery of life devolves upon the squaws. Smith gave 
high offense to the warriors by taking a hoe in his hands and working with 
the squaws for half an hour, at a time when they were engaged in planting^ 
corn. They reprimanded him with some severity for his industry, observing 
that it was degrading to a warrior to be engaged in labor like a squaw, and 
for the future he must learn to demean himself more loftily, always remem- 
bering that he was a member of a warlike tribe and a noble family. 

"They are remarkably hospitable, always offering to a stranger the best 
that they have. If a warrior, upon entering a strange wigwam, is not im- 
mediately invited to eat, he considers himself deeply affronted, although he 
may have just arisen from a meal at home. It is not enough on these occa- 
sions that ordinary food, such as venison or hominy, is offered. It is thought 
rude and churlish not to set before their guest their greatest delicacies, such 
as sugar, bear's oil, honey, and, if they have it, rum. If there is no food of 
any kind in the house, which is often the case, the fact is instantly men- 
tioned, and is at once accepted as a sufficient apology. Smith was so un- 
fortunate as to incur some reproach upon this subject also. While he and 
his adopted brother, Tontillogo, were encamped in the woods, hunting, 
there came a hunter of the Wyandotte tribe, who entered their camp, faint 
and hungry, having had no success in hunting, and, consequently, having 
fasted for several days. 



INDIAN ENDURANCE GREATER THAN THE WHITES. 375 

"Tontillogo was absent at the time, but Smith received the visitor with 
great hospitality, and gave him an abundant meal of hominy and venison. 
Shortly after Wyandotte's departure, his brother, Tontillogo, returned, and 
Smith informed him of the visit of the stranger, and of his hospitable 
reception. Tontillogo listened with great gravity, and replied : ' And, I 
suppose, of course, you brought up some of the sugar and bear's oil which 
was left below in the canoe?' 'No,' replied Smith; 'I never thought of 
it; it was at too great a distance.' 'Well, brother,' replied Tontillogo, 
'you have behaved just like a Dutchman! I can excuse it in you this time, 
as you are young, and have been brought up among the white people ; but 
you must learn to behave like a warrior, and never be caught in such little 
actions ! Great actions alone can ever make a great man ! ' 

"Their power of sustaining long-continued fatigue is very extraordinary. 
Even their squaws will travel as fast as an ordinary horse, and pack an in- 
credible quantity of baggage upon their backs. In the spring of 1756, a 
great quantity of game had been killed at a considerable distance from the 
village, and all the inhabitants, including squaws and boys, turned out to 
bring it home. Smith was loaded with a large piece of buffalo, which, after 
packing two or three miles, he found too heavy for him, and was compelled 
to throw it down. One of the squaws laughed heartily, and, coming up, 
relieved him of a large part of it, adding it to her own pack, which before 
was equal to Smith's. This, he says, stimulated him to greater exertion 
than the severest punishment would have done. 

"Their warriors, for a short distance, are not swifter than the whites, but 
are capable of sustaining the exercise for an incredible length of time. An 
Indian warrior can run for twelve or fourteen hours without refreshment, 
and after a hasty meal and very brief repose, appears completely refreshed, 
and ready for a second course. Smith found it more difficult to compete 
with them' in this respect than in any other, for, although he ran with great 
swiftness for a few miles, he could not continue such violent exertion for a 
whole day. While he and his brother, Tontillogo, were encamped at a 
distance from the others, they were much distressed from having to pack 
their meat from such a distance, and, as three horses were constantly grazing 
near them, Tontillogo proposed that they should run them down and catch 
them, it having been found impossible to take them in any other way. 

"Smith, having but little relish for the undertaking, urged the impossi- 
bility of succcess. But Tontillogo replied that he had frequently run down 
bear, deer, elk, and buffalo, and believed that, in the course of a day and 
night, he could run down any four-footed animal, except the wolf. Smith 
observed that, although deer were swifter than horses for a short distance, 
yet a horse could run much longer than either the elk or buffalo, and he 
was confident they would tire themselves to no purpose. The other insisted 
upon making the experiment, at any rate; and at daylight, on a cold day in 
February, and on a hard snow several inches deep, the race began. The 



376 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

two hunters stripped themselves to their moccasins, and started at full speed. 
The horses were in very high order, and very wild, but contented them- 
selves with running in a circle of six or seven miles circumference, and 
would not entirely abandon their usual grazing-ground. 
' "At ten o'clock. Smith dropped considerably astern, and before eleven 
Tontillogo and the horses were out of sight, the Indian keeping close at 
their heels, and allowing them no time for rest. Smith, naked as he was, 
and glowing with exercise, threw himself upon the hard snow; and having 
cooled himself in this manner, he remained stationary until three o'clock in 
the evening, when the horses again came in view, their flanks smoking Hke 
a seething kettle, and Tontillogo close behind them, running with undi- 
minished speed. Smith, being now perfectly fresh, struck in ahead of 
Tontillogo, and compelled the horses to quicken their speed, while his 
Indian brother, from behind, encouraged him to do his utmost, after shout- 
ing: 'Chako! Chakoa-nough!' — ' Pull away ! Pull away, my boy!' 

"Had Tontillogo thought of resting, and committed the chase to Smith 
alone for some hours, and then in his turn relieved him, they might have 
succeeded; but neglecting this plan, they both continued the chase till dark. 
Perceiving that the horses ran still with great vigor, they despaired of suc- 
cess, and returned to camp, having tasted nothing since morning, and one 
of them at least having run nearly one hundred miles. Tontillogo was 
somewhat crestfallen at the result of the race, and grumbled not a little at 
their long wind; but Smith assured him that they had attempted an impos- 
sibility, and he became reconciled to their defeat. 

"Their discipline with regard to their children is not remarkably strict. 
Whipping is rare with them, and is considered the most disgraceful of all 
punishments. Ducking in cold water is the ordinary punishment for mis- 
behavior; and, as might be expected, their children are more obedient in 
winter than in summer. Smith, during his first winter's residence among 
them, was an eye-witness to a circumstance, which we shall relate as a lively 
example of Indian manners : His brother, Tontillogo, was married to a 
Wyandotte squaw, who had several children by a former husband. One of 
these children offended his step-father in some way, who, in requital, gave 
him the 'strappado,' with a whip made of buffalo hide. 

"The discipline was quite moderate, but the lad shouted very loudly, and 
soon brought out his Wyandotte mother. She instantly took her child's 
part, with great animation. It was in vain that the husband explained the 
offense, and urged the moderation with which he had inflicted the punish- 
ment. All would not do. 'The child,' she said, 'was no slave, to be 
beaten and scourged with a whip. His father had been a warrior, and 
a Wyandotte, and his child was entitled to honorable usage. If he had 
offended his stepfather, there was cold water enough to be had; let him be 
be ducked until he would be brought to reason, and she would not utter a 
word of complaint; but a 'buffalo tug' was no weapon with which the son 



SUPERSTITION OF T}IE INDIANS. 377 

of a warrior ought to be struck. His father's spirit was frowning in the 
skies at the degradation of his child.' 

"Tontihogo Ustened with great calmness to this indignant remonstrance; 
ind, having lit his pipe, strolled off, in order to give his squaw an oppor- 
Lunity of becoming cool. The offense, however, had been of too serious a 
nature. His squaw, shortly after his departure, caught a horse, and taking 
der children with her, rode off to the Wyandotte village, about forty miles 
distant. In the afternoon, Tontillogo returned to his wigwam, and found 
no one there but Smith, an old man, and a boy. He appeared much troubled 
It his squaw's refractory conduct, uttered some deep interjections, but 
finally did as most husbands are compelled to do — followed her to make 
his peace. 

"They are remarkably superstitious, and hold their 'conjurers' in great 
^•eneration. These dignitaries are generally old and decrepid. On the bor- 
ders of Lake Erie, one evening, a squaw came running into camp, where 
Smith, Tontillogo, and a few others were reposing, after a long day's 
journey, and alarmed them wath the information that two strange Indians, 
irmed with rifles, were standing upon the opposite shore of a small creek, 
and appeared to be reconnoitering the camp. It was supposed that they 
were Johnston Mohawks, and that they would be shortly attacked. Instantly, 
the women and children were sent into the woods, and the warriors retired 
from the light of the fires, taking their stations silently in the dark, and 
awaiting the enemy's approach. 

" Manetohcoa, their old conjurer, alone remained by the fire, regardless 
Df the danger, and busily employed in his necromantic art. To assist him 
.n his labors, he had dyed feathers, the shoulder-blade of a wildcat, and a 
arge quantity of leaf tobacco. Thus accoutered, he conjured away, with 
^reat industry, in the light of the fire, and exposed to the most imminent 
danger in case of an attack, as he was very lame, totally deaf, and miserably 
heumatic. After a few minutes' anxious expectation, old Manetohcoa called 
iloud upon his friends to return to the fire, assuring them that there was 
10 danger. They instantly obeyed with the utmost confidence, and their 
iquaws and children were recalled, as if no further danger was to be ap- 
prehended. Upon coming up, they found old Manetohcoa enveloped in 
:obacco smoke, and holding the bone of the wildcat in his hand, on which 
lis eyes were fixed with great earnestness. 

"He told them, after having burnt his feathers, fumigated himself with the 
:obacco, heated his blade-bone, and pronounced his charm, that he expected 
:o see a multitude of Mohawks arise upon the surface of the bone ; but, to 
lis surprise, he saw only the figures of two wolves. He assured them that 
;he woman had mistaken the wolves for the Mohawks, and that no enemy 
was near them. The Indians instantly composed themselves to rest, relying 
confidently upon the truth of the old man's assertions. In the morning, to 
Smith's astonishment, the tracks of two wolves were seen at the spot where 



378 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the squaw's account had placed the Mohawks. The Indians expressed no 
surprise at this extraordinary confirmation of the old man's skill in divina- 
tion, but Smith's infidelity was powerfully shaken. Admitting the truth of 
the facts — and, from Colonel Smith's high reputation for piety and integrity, 
we presume they can not be questioned — it must be acknowledged either an 
extraordinary instance of sagacity, or else we must class it among those nu- 
merous fortunate coincidences of circumstances which occasionally have 
staggered the faith of much more learned men than Colonel Smith. John- 
ston's superstition is well known, and Smith's doubts may at least be par- 
doned. 

"Their military principles are few and simple, but remarkable for sagacity, 
and singularly adapted to the character of the warfare in which they are 
generally engaged. Caution, perhaps, rather than boldness, is the leading 
feature of their system. To destroy their enemy at the least possible risk to 
themselves is their great object. They are by no means, as has been some- 
times supposed, destitute of discipline. Their maneuvers are few, but in 
performing them they are peculiarly alert, ready, and intelligent. In form- 
ing a line, in protecting their flanks by bodies arranged en potence, or in 
forming a large hollow square for the purpose of making head against a 
superior force, they are inferior to no troops in the world. Each movement 
is indicated by a loud whoop, of peculiar intonation, from their leader, and 
is irregularly but rapidly obeyed. The result is order, although during the 
progress of the movement the utmost apparent confusion prevails. 

" Nothing astonished them more than the pertinacity with which Braddock 
adhered to European tactics in the celebrated battle on the banks of the 
Monongahela. They often assured Smith that the Long Knives, so called 
from their use of swords and bayonets, were fools; that they could neither 
fight nor run away, but drew themselves up in close order and stood still, 
as if to give their enemies the best possible opportunity of shooting them 
down at their leisure. Grant's masquerade before the walls of Fort Du- 
(juesne also gave them much perplexity. A venerable Canewaughga chief, 
who had in his youth been a renowned warrior and counselor, and who ex- 
celled all his contemporaries in sagacity and benevolence, frequently told 
Smith that Grant's conduct was to him totally inexplicable. 

"This general formed the advance of General Forbes in 1767. He 
marched with great secrecy and celerity through the Avoods, and appeared 
upon the hill above Duquesne in the night. There he encamped, and, by 
way of bravado, caused the drums to be beat and the bag-pipes to play, as 
if to inform the enemy of his arrival. At daylight, he was surrounded by 
Indians, who, creeping up under cover of bushes, gullies, and other con- 
cealments, nearly annihilated his army without any sensible loss to them- 
selves. The old chief observed 'that, as the great art of war consisted in 
ambushing and surprising your enemy and preventing yourself from being 
surprised. Grant had acted like a skillful warrior in coming secretly upon 



SMITH S CRITICAL SITUATION. 379 

them, but that his subsequent conduct in giving the alarm to his enemy, in- 
stead of falling on them with the bayonet, was very extraordinary; that he 
:ould only account for it by supposing Grant, like too majiy other warriors, 
(vas fond of rum, and had become drunk about daylight.' 

"They had the most sovereign contempt for all book-learning. Smith was 
Dccasionally in the habit of reading a few elementary English books, which 
le had procured from traders, and lost credit among them by his fondness 
"or study. Nothing with them can atone for a practical ignorance of the 
ivoods. We have seen, that for losing himself. Smith was degraded from 
:he rank of a warrior, and reduced to that of a boy. Two years afterward 
le regained his rank, and was presented with a rifle, as a reward for an 
exhibition of hardihood and presence of mind. In company with the old 
:hief, to whom we have just referred, and several other Indians, he was en- 
gaged in hunting. A deep snow was upon the ground, and the weather 
vas tempestuous. On their way home, a number of raccoon-tracks were 
seen in the snow, and Smith was directed to follow them and observe where 
;hey treed. He did so, but they led him off to a much greater distance than 
yas supposed, and the hunters were several miles ahead of him when he 
ittempted to rejoin them. 

"At first, their tracks were very plain in the snow; and although night 
ipproached, and the camp was distant. Smith felt no anxiety. But about 
iusk his situation became critical. The weather became suddenly much 
:older, the wind blew a perfect hurricane, and whirlwinds of snow blinded 
lis eyes and filled up the tracks of his companions. He had with him 
leither a gun, flint, nor steel; no shelter but a blanket, and no weapon but 
I tomahawk. He plodded on for several hours, ignorant of his route, stum- 
bling over logs, and chilled with cold, until the snow became so deep as 
ieriously to impede his progress, and the flakes fell so thick as to render it 
mpossible to see where he was going. He shouted aloud for help, but no 
mswer was returned; and as the storm every instant became more outrage- 
)us, he began to think that his hour had come. 

"Providentially, in stumbling on through the snow, he came to a large 
jycamore with a considerable opening on the windward side. He hastily 
:rept in, and found the hollow sufficiently large to accommodate him for 
;he night, if the weather side could be closed so as to exclude the snow and 
vind, which was beating against it with great violence. He instantly went 
;o work with his tomahawk, and cut a number of sticks, which he placed 
jpright against the hole, and piled brush against it in great quantities, leav- 
ng a space open for himself to creep in. He then broke up a decayed log, 
ind cutting it into small pieces, pushed them, one by one, into the hollow 
3f the tree, and lastly, crept in himself. With these pieces he stopped up 
:he remaining holes of his den, until not a chink was left to admit the light. 
The snow, drifting in large quantities, was soon banked up against his de- 
fenses, and completely sheltered him from the storm, which still continued 



380 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

to rage with undiminished fury. He then danced violently in the center of 
his den for two hours, until he was sufficiently warmed, and, wrapping him- 
self m his blanket, he slept soundly until morning. 

"He awoke in utter darkness, and, groping about, found his door and 
attempted to push it away, but the snow had drifted against it in such quan- 
tities that it resisted his utmost efforts. His hair now began to bristle, and 
he feared that he had, with great ingenuity, contrived to bury himself alive. 
He laid down again for several hours, meditating upon what he should do, 
and whether he should not attempt to cut through the tree with his toma- 
hawk; but at length he made one more desperate effort to push away the 
door, and succeeded in moving it several inches, when a great bank of 
snow fell in upon him from above, convincing him at once of the immense 
■quantity which had fallen. He at length burrowed his way into the upper 
air, and found it broad daylight and the weather calm and mild. The snow- 
lay nearly four feet deep, but he was now enabled to see his way clearl}-, 
and, by examining the barks of the trees, was enabled to return to camp. 

" He was received with loud shouts of joy and congratulation, but not a 
single question was asked until he had dispatched a hearty meal of venison, 
hominy, and sugar. 

"The old chief, Tecaughnetanego, whom we have already mentioned, 
then presented him with his own pipe, and they all remained silent until 
Smith had smoked. When they saw him completely refreshed, the venerablc 
•chief addressed him in a mild and affectionate manner, for Smith at that 
time was a mere boy with them, and desired to hear a particular account of 
the manner in which he had passed the night. Not a word was spoken until 
Smith concluded his story, and then he was greeted on all sides with shouts 
of approbation. 

"Tecaughnetanego arose and addressed him in a short speech, in whii ! 
his courage, hardihood, and presence of mind were highly commended. Hl 
was exhorted to go on as he had begun, and assured that one day he would 
make a very great man ; that all his brothers rejoiced in his safety, as much 
as they had lamented his supposed death ; that they were preparing snow- 
shoes to go in search of him when he appeared, but, as he had been brought 
lip effeminately among the whites, they never expected to see him alive. In 
conclusion, he was promoted from the rank of a boy to that of a warrior, 
and assured that, when they sold skins in the spring, at Detroit, they would 
purchase for him a new rifle. And they faithfully observed their promise. 

"They are extravagantly fond of rum, but drinking does not with them, as 
with the whites, form part of the besetting habits of life. They occasionall\ 
indulge in a wild and frantic revel, which sometimes lasts several days, and 
then return to their ordinary habits. They can not husband their liquor, 
for the sake of prolonging the pleasure of toping ; it is used with the mos 
reckless profusion while it lasts, and all drink to beastly intoxication. Thei 
squaws are as fond of liquor as the warriors, and share in all their excesses. 



THE ORGIES OF INDIANS. 38 r 

i' "After the party to which Smith belonged had sold their beaver-skins, and 
Vovided themselves with ammunition and blankets, all their surplus cash 
tvas expended in rum, which was bought by the keg. They then held a 
':ouncil, in which a few strong-bodied hunters were selected to remain sober 
'ind protect the rest during the revel, for which they were preparing. Smith 
■,vas courteously invited to get drunk, but, upon his refusal, he was told that 
'le must join the sober party and assist in keeping order. This, as he quickly 
bund, was an extremely dangerous office; but before engaging in the serious 
■jusiness of drinking, the warriors carefully removed their tomahawks and 
^nives, and took every precaution against bloodshed. A shocking scene 
kvas then commenced. Rum was swallowed in immense quantities, and 
':heir wild passions were stimulated to frenzy. Smith and the sober party 
Were exposed to the most imminent peril, and were compelled to risk their 
'lives every moment. Much injury was done, but no lives were lost. 

"In the Ottawa camp, where the same infernal orgies were celebrated, the 
"result was more tragical. Several warriors were killed on the spot, and a 
number more wounded. So long as they had money, the revel was kept up 
day and night; but when their funds were exhausted, they gathered up their 
dead and wounded, and, with dejected countenances, returned to the wil- 
derness. All had some cause of lamentation. The blanket of one had been 
burnt, and he had no money to buy another; the fine clothes of another had 
been torn from his back ; some had been maimed, and all had improvidently 
wasted their money. 

"The religion of the Indians, although defaced by superstition, and in- 
termingled with many rites and notions which appear absurd, contains, 
nevertheless, a distinct acknowledgment of the existence of a Supreme 
Being, and a future state. The various tribes are represented by Dr. Rob- 
ertson, as polytheists; and Mr. Hume considers polytheism as inseparably 
attendant upon the savage state. It appears, however, that the Western 
Indians approached more nearly to simple deism than most savage nations 
with whom we have been heretofore acquainted. One Great Spirit is uni- 
versally worshiped throughout the West, although different tribes give Him 
different names. In the immense prairies of the West, He is generally 
termed Wahcondah, or Master of Life. With the Indians of the lakes. He 
was generally termed Manito, which, we believe, means simply The Spirit. 
In the language of Smith's tribe, He was known by the title of Owaneeyo, 
or the Possessor of All Things. 

"Human sacrifices are very common among the tribes living west of the 
Mississippi ; but we have seen no evidence of such a custom among those of 
the North-west. 

"Tecaughnetanego, the veteran chief, whom we have already mentioned, 
was esteemed the wisest and most venerable of his own nation, and his re- 
ligious opinions, perhaps, may be regarded as a very favorable sample of 
Indian theology. We shall take the liberty of detailing several conversations 



382 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of this old chief, particularly upon religious subjects, which to us were the 
most interesting passages of Smith's diary, growing, as they did, out of a 
situation which required the exercise of some philosophy and reliance upon 
Providence. We have already adverted to the precarious nature of the i 
Indian supplies of food, dependent, as they are, upon the woods for their 
meat, and liable to frequent failures from the state of the weather, and other 
circumstances over which they had no control. 

"It so happened that Smith, together with Tontillogo and the old chief, 
Tecaughnetanego, were encamped at a great distance from the rest of the 
tribe, and during the early part of the winter they were very successful in 
hunting, and were abundantly supplied with all the necessaries. Upon the 
breach between Tontillogo and his wife, however. Smith and the old chief 
were left in the woods, with no other company than that of Nungany, a little 
son of the latter, not more than ten years old. Tecaughnetanego, notwith- 
standing his age, which exceeded sixty, was still a skillful hunter, and cap- 
able of great exertion when in good health ; but, unfortunately, was subject 
to dreadful attacks of rheumatism, during which, in addition to the most 
excruciating pain, he was incapable of moving his limbs, or helping himself 
in any way. Smith was but a young hunter, and Nungany totally useless 
except as a cook ; but while Tecaughnetanego retained the use of his limbs, 
notwithstanding the loss of Tontillogo, they killed game very abundantly. 
About the middle of January, however, the weather became excessively 
cold, and the old chief was stretched upon the floor of his wigwam, totally 
unable to move. The whole care of the family now devolved upon Smith, 
and his exertions were not wanting ; but from his youth and inexperience, he 
was unable to provide as plentifully as Tontillogo had done, and they were 
reduced to very short allowance. The old chief, notwithstanding the excru- 
ciating pain which he daily suffered, always strove to entertain Smith at 
night with agreeable conversation, and instructed him carefully and repeat- 
edly in the art of hunting. At length, the snow became hard and crusty, 
and the noise of Smith's footsteps frightened the deer, so that, with the 
utmost caution he could use, he was unable to get within gun-shot. The 
family, in consequence, were upon the eve of starvation. 

"One evening. Smith entered the hut, faint and weary, after a hunt of two 
days, during which he had eaten nothing. Tecaughnetanego had fasted for 
the same length of time, and both had been upon short allowance for a 
week. Smith came in very moodily, and, laying aside his gun and powder- 
horn, sat down by the fire in silence. Tecaughnetanego inquired mildly 
and calmly what success he had had. Smith answered that they must starve, 
as the deer were so wild that he could not get within gun-shot, and it was 
too far to go to any Indian settlement for food. The old man remained 
silent for a moment, and then, in the same mild tone, asked him if he was 
hungry. Smith replied that the keen appetite seemed gone, but that he felt 
sick and dizzy, and scarcely able to walk. ' I have made Nungany hunt up 



M 



AN INDIAN'S FAITH. 383 

ome food for you, brother,' said the old man kindly, and bade him pro- 
luce it. This food was nothing more than the bones of a fox and wildcat, 
A'hich had been thrown into the woods a few days before, and which the 
buzzards had already picked almost bare. 

:, "Nungany had collected and boiled them until the sinews were stripped 
.)f the flesh, intending them for himself and father, both of whom were 
learly famished. But the old man had put them away for Smith, in case he 
.hould again return without food. Smith quickly threw himself upon this 
avory soup, and swallowed spoonful after spoonful with the voracity of a 
;yolf. Tecaughnetanego waited patiently until he had finished his meal, 
A'hich continued until the last spoonful had been swallowed, and then, hand- 
ing him his own pipe, invited him to smoke. Little Nuhgany, in the mean- 
time, removed the kettle, after looking in vain for some remnant of the feast 
,or his own supper. He had watched every mouthful which Smith swallowed 
vith eager longing, but in perfect silence, and finding that, for the third 
light, he must remain supperless, he sat down quietly at his father's feet, 
^ind was soon asleep. 

;, "Tecaughnetanego, as soon as Smith had smoked, asked him if he felt 
refreshed, and, upon receiving an animated assurance in the affirmative, he 
jiddressed him mildly as follows: 'I saw, brother, when you first came in, 
hat you had been unfortunate in hunting, and were ready to despair. I 
hould have spoken at the time what I am now about to say, but I have 
always observed that hungry people are not in a temper to listen to reason. 
i''ou are now refreshed, and can listen patiently to the words of your elder 
)rother. I was once young like you, but am now old. I have seen sixty 
•nows fall, and have often been in a worse condition for want of food than 
,ve are now; yet I have always been supplied, and that, too, at the very time 
,vhen I was ready to despair. Brother, you have been brought up among 
he whites, and have not had the same opportunities of seeing how wonder- 
fully Owaneeyo provides food for His children in the woods. He sometimes 
ets them be in great want, to teach them that they are dependent upon Him, 
[md to remind them of their weakness; but He never permits them abso- 
utely to perish. Rest assured that your brother is telling you no lie, but be 
atisfied that He will do as I have told you. Go now; sleep soundly; arise 
■arly in the morning and go out to hunt; be strong and diligent; do your 
)est, and trust to Owaneeyo for the rest.' 

"The next day Smith was fortunate enough to kill a buffalo, at a distance 
,)f some ten miles from the wigwam. After satisfying his own hunger with 
■ome choice parts hastily roasted, he secured the carcass, after cutting off as 
nuch as he could carry home. He then returned to camp with as much 
expedition as he could exert. It was late at night when he entered the huts. 
Tecaughnetanego received him with the same mild equanimity which had 
leretofore distinguished him, and thanked him affectionately for the exer- 
ions he had used. In the meanwhile, the eyes of the famished boy were 



384 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. ! 

fastened upon the meat, as if he would devour it raw. Smith boiled 
some for the old man, while Nungany devoured a portion, barely scorched 
on the coals, with the voracity of a shark. Tecaughnetanego, though tort- 
ured with three days of fasting, patiently awaited the well-cooked stew, and 
then ate with all the avidity of his unrestrained appetite. The next day 
Smith was again fortunate enough to kill a bear; thus providing very boun- 
tifully for two or three weeks, and making all very contented. 

" Early in April, Tecaughnetanego's rheumatism abated so much as to 
permit him to walk, upon which they built a bark canoe, and descended the 
Ollentangy, until the water became so shallow as to endanger their frail bark 
among the rocks. A council was then held, in which Tecaughnetanego- 
proposed to go ashore and pray for rain to raise the creek or river so as to 
enable them to continue their journey. Smith readily consented; and they 
accordingly disembarked, drawing their canoe ashore after them. Here the 
old Indian built a sweating-house, in order to purify himself before engaging 
in his religious duties. 

"He stuck a number of semi-circular hoops in the ground, and laid a 
blanket over them. He then heated a number of large stones and placed 
them under the blanket, and finally crawled in himself, with a kettle of 
water in his hand, directing Smith to draw down the blanket after him, so 
as almost entirely to exclude the outside air. He then poured the water 
upon the hot stones, and began to sing aloud with great energy, the steam 
rising from the blanket like a heavy mist. In this hot place he continued 
for fifteen minutes, singing the whole time, and then came out dripping with 
perspiration from head to foot. As soon as he had taken breath, he began 
to burn tobacco, throwing it into the fire by handfuls, at the same time re- 
peating the following words in a tone of deep and solemn earnestness : ' 0, 
Great Owaneeyo ! I thank thee that I have regained the use of my legs once 
more; that I am now able to walk about and kill turkeys, without feeling 
exquisite pain. Oh! ho! ho! ho! grant that my knees and ankles maybe 
right well, that I may be able not only to walk, but to run and to jump logs, 
as I did last fall ! Oh ! ho ! ho ! ho ! grant that upon this voyage we may 
frequently kill bears as they may be crossing the Sandusky and Scioto ! Oh I 
ho! ho! ho! grant that we may also kill a few turkeys to stew with our 
bear's meat! Oh! ho! ho! ho! grant that rain may come to raise the Ol- 
lentangy a few feet, that we may cross in safety down to Scioto, without 
splitting our canoe upon the rocks! And now, O, Great Owaneeyo! Thou 
knowest how fond I am of tobacco, and though I do not know when I shall 
get any more, yet you see that I have freely given up all that I have for a 
burnt-offering; therefore, I expect that Thou wilt be merciful and hear all 
my petitions, and I, Thy servant, will thank Thee, and love Thee for all 
Thy gifts.' 

" Smith explained to him the outlines of the Christian religion, and dwelt 
particularly upon the doctrine of reconciliation through the atonement of 



THE INDIAN DANCES. 385 

Christ. Tecaughnetanego listened with patience and gravity until his com- 
> panion had finished his remarks, and then calmly observed that 'it might be 
■ so!' but declared that he was too old now to change his religion; that he 
r should, therefore, continue to worship God after the manner of his fathers, 
and if it were not consistent with the honor of the Great Spirit to accept him 
J in that way, then he hoped that He would receive him upon such ternis as 
were acceptable to Him; that it was his earnest and sincere desire to wor- 
,, ship the Great Spirit and obey His wishes, and he hoped that Owaneeyo 
1 would overlook such faults as arose from ignorance and weakness, not will- 
r ful neglect.' To a speech of this kind, the sentiments of which find an 
[ echo in almost every breast. Smith could make no reply. Here, therefore, 
^ the subject ended. 

"A few days afterward, there came a fine rain, and the Ollentangy was 
soon sufficiently deep to admit of their passage in safety, and, after reach- 
ing the Sandusky, they killed four bears and a great many wild turkeys. 
Tecaughnetanego gravely assured Smith that this was a clear and direct 
, answer to his prayer, and inferred from it that his religion could not be as 
, unacceptable to Owaneeyo as Smith supposed. Perhaps it would be dif- 
ficult to disprove the first part of the old Indian's observation; the last is 
more questionable." 

1 Dancing is most prominent among the aboriginal ceremonies, and all 

tribes practice it. The Indians have their war dance and their peace dance, 

I their dance of mourning, their pipe dance, their green- corn dance, and 

their wabana, each of these distinguished by some peculiarity appropriate 

V to the occasion. In the war dance, the actors are distinguished by a free 

use of black and red paint; in the peace dance, by green and white; in 

that for the dead, by black, and in the other dances, except the wabana, 

n black prevails. 

It The paint, in all the dances, is put on according to the fancy of each in- 
dividual. A line is sometimes drawn, dividing the body, from the forehead 
.. and from the back of the head downward, on either side of which different 
li figures are drawn, representing beasts, birds, fish, snakes, etc. Frequently 
, the hand is smeared with paint and pressed on either cheek, the breast, and 
the sides. It rarely happens that two of the group are painted alike. The 
music consists of a monotonous thumping with sticks upon a rude drum, 
I accompanied by the voices of the dancers, and mingled with the rattling of 
gourds, containing pebbles, and the jingling of small bells and pieces of tin 
worn as ornaments. The wabana is an ofi"ering to the devil, and, like some 
] others, the green-corn dance, for example, winds up with a feast. 

-On a certain occasion in 1819,, when Shaumonekusse, an Ottoe chief, 
and some of the most noted warriors, performed a dance in honor of an 
American party under Colonel Long, they formed around the flagstaff which 

I Indian Gallery, Department at Washington, D. C. 
' 2 Indian Gallery, War Department. 

25 



386 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

had been erected. letan stepped forward and struck the staff, as the others 
nioved around it. This ceremony they called striking the post, when every 
word spoken is pledged to be true. In recounting his martial deeds, letan 
said he had stolen horses seven or eight times from the Kansas; he had 
first ^ struck the bodies of three of that nation slain in battle. He had stolen 
horses from the letans, and had struck one of them dead. Then he stole 
them from the Pawnees, and he had struck the body of one. He had stolen 
horses several times from the Omahas, and once from the Puncas. He had 
struck the bodies of two Sioux. On a war party, in company with the Paw- 
nees, he had attacked the Spaniards in the South-west, and shot down and 
struck one. All these performances were of the most meritorious character 
with the savages, and gave an envious fame to the heroic actor. With the 
whites,: the deeds could only have been recounted to portray the deviltries 
of the most abandoned penitentiary convict, hopelessly outlawed. 

On the occasion, as the chief recited, in a sort of frenzied rhapsody, his 
thefts and murders, he acted out, in dramatic or comic style, the manner of 
his performances to the life in horse-stealing. He carried a whip in his 
hand, as did a number of his comrades in the dance, and around his neck 
were thrown several leather thongs for bridles and halters, the ends of which 
trailed on the ground behind him. After many preparatory maneuvers, he 
stooped down, and, with his knife, represented the act of cutting the hopples 
by which horses are tied ; he then rode his tomahawk, as children ride their 
broomsticks, and made such use of his whip as to indicate the necessity of 
rapid movement, lest his foes should overtake him. 

Shaumonekusse was, like most Indians, intensely fond of ornamentation, 
and the dude of his tribe. His squaw. The Eagle of Delight, was an Indian 
beauty, and together they visited Washington in 182 1. Many presents were 
given the pretty wife during the visit, which, as soon as received, the vain 
chief suspended upon his own nose, ears, neck, and head, thinking a wife 
unadorned adorned the most. 

The Indian is always very true and confiding toward his own race; but 
toward the whites, whom he held generally to be inveterate enemies, he was 
secretive, lying, and treacherous, without scruple or remorse, except in in- 
dividual cases of friendship and warm attachments. Indeed, this is charac- 
teristic of every ignorant and degraded race, when it comes in contact with 
one of superior civilization, ever suspicious that the self-interest, which is 
the dominant motive with men in secular relations, only seeks the oppor- 
tunity in every dealing, for advantage. The extremes of the sublime and 
the ridiculous meet in the red man of the forest. He is heroic in bravery, 
in patience under fatigue or privation; often generous, and sometimes te- 
nacious ©f a point of honor, to an extreme which is paralleled only in the 
records of chivalry. In all that relates to war or the council, they are sys- 
tematic; and the leading men exhibit much dignity and consistency of char- 

1 Scalped. 



ANECDOTES OF WAWKAW. 387 

: acter. But when the Indian is taken from this hmited circle and thrown 
into contact with the white man in social intercourse, his want of versatility 

, and deficiency of intellectual resources often degrade him at once into mean- 
ness and puerility. For a time he may disguise himself in his habitual gravity, 
and his native shrewdness may enable him to parry attempts to pry into his 
thoughts, or throw him off his guard; but the sequel is very sure to betray 
the barrenness of the savage mind. 

1 An anecdote of IVawkatv, a Winnebago chief, and a retinue of famed 

• warriors, and other Indians eminent in council, while on a mission visit at 
\ Washington and the East, in 1829, at Government expense, is a good illus- 

■ tration of these characterizing comments. While at New York, the Winne- 

■ bago deputies attended, by invitation, a balloon ascension at the Battery. 
. At this beautiful spot, where the magnificence of a city on the one hand, 

and a splendid view of one of the noblest harbors in the world on the other, 
> combine to form a landscape of unrivaled grandeur, thousands of spectators 

were assembled to witness the exploit of the aeronaut, and to behold the 
4 impression which would be made upon the savage mind by so novel an ex- 
: hibition. The chiefs and warriors were provided with suitable places, and 

■ many an eye was turned in anxious scrutiny upon their imperturbable coun- 

• tenances, as they gazed in silence upon the balloon ascending into the upper 
atmosphere. At length Wawkaw was asked what he thought of the aero- 

i naut? He replied coolly: "I think they are fools to trifle in that way with 

their lives; what good does it do?" Being asked if he had ever before seen 
so many people assembled at one time, he answered: "We have more in 
our smallest villages." 

While at Washington they lodged at a public hotel, and regaled in the 

1 most plentiful and sumptuous manner; notwithstanding which, when about 
to leave the city, Wawkaw complained of the quality of the food placed 

' upon his table. Such a remark from an Indian, whose cookery is the most 
unartificial imaginable, and whose notions of neatness are far from being 

' refined, was considered singular, and on inquiry being made, it turned out 
that a piece of roast beef, which had been taken from the table untouched, 
was placed a second time before these fastidious gentlemen, who, on their 
native prairies, would have devoured it raw, but who now considered their 

\ dignity infringed by such a procedure. Being asked if the beef was not 
good enough, he replied that there were plenty of turkeys and chickens to 

' be had, and he would choose them in preference. 

On their way home, at the first place at which they stopped to dine after 
leaving Baltimore, they sat down at a well-furnished table. A fine roasted 

• turkey at the head of the table attracted their attention, but keeping that in 
' reserve, they commenced upon a chicken pie. While thus engaged, a 

stranger entered, and, taking his seat at the head of the table, called for a 
plate. The Indians became alarmed for the turkey, cast significant glances 

1 Indian Gallery, War Department, Washington, D. C. 



388 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

at each other, and eyed the object of their desire with renewed eagerness. 
They inquired of each other, in subdued accents, what was to be done;, 
their plates being well supplied, they could not ask to be helped again, yet 
the turkey was in imminent jeopardy. The stranger was evidently hungry, 
and he looked like a man who would not trifle with his knife and fork. 
Luckily, however, he was not yet supplied with these necessary implements; 
there was a moment still left to be improved, and the red gentlemen having 
cleared their plates, occupied it by dividing among them an apple pie, which 
quickly vanished. A clean plate, knife, and fork were now placed before- 
the stranger, who was about to help himself, when, to his astonishment and 
utter discomfiture, one of the Indians arose, stepped to the head of the table, 
and adroitly fixing his fork in the turkey, bore it off to his companions, who- 
very gravely, and without appearing to take the least notice of the details 
of the exploit, commenced dividing the spoil, while the stranger, recover- 
ing from his surprise, broke out into a loud laugh, in which the Indians 
joined. 

As the party receded from the capital, the fare became coarser, and the 
red men began to sigh for the fat poultry and rich joints that were left behind 
them. And now another idea occurred to their minds. Having noticed that 
payment was made regularly for every meal, they inquired if all the meals 
they ate were paid for, and being answered in the affirmative, each Indian, 
on rising from the table, loaded himself with the fragments of the feast, 
until nothing remained. When they observed that this conduct was noticed,, 
they defended it by remarking that the provisions were all paid for. 

Perhaps nothing in human ferocity ever surpassed the fiendish orgies of 
diabolical malice and delight which the savages practiced around their suf- 
fering and dying victims whom they burned at the stake. As an example 
of what they were capable, Dr. Knight's narrative of the burning of Colonel 
Crawford is instructive: 

i"When the speech was finished, they all yelled a hideous and hearty 
assent to what had been said. The Indian men then took up their guns and 
shot powder into the colonel's body from his feet as far up as his neck. I 
think that not less than seventy loads were discharged upon his naked body. 
They then crowded about him, and^ to the best of my observation, cut off 
his ears. When the throng had dispersed a little, I saw the blood running 
from both sides of his head in consequence thereof. He seemed an object 
fitted to move the pity of a wolf, if possible. 

"The fire was about six or seven yards from the post to which the col- 
onel was tied. It was made of small hickory poles, burnt quite through in the 
middle, each end of the pole remaining about six feet in length. Three or 
four Indians by turns would take up, individually, one of these burning 
pieces of wood and apply it to his naked body, already burnt black with the 
powder. These tormentors presented themselves on every side of him with 

I Western Annals, p. 246. 



THE BURNING OF COLONEL CRAWFORD. 389 

the burning fagots and poles. Some of the squaws took broad boards, upon 
which they would carry a quantity of burning coals and hot embers and 
throw on him, so that in a short time he had nothing but coals of fire and 
hot ashes to walk upon. 

"In the midst of these extreme tortures, he called to Simon Girty and 
begged of him to shoot him ; but Girty making no answer, he called to him 
again. Girty then, by way of derision, told the colonel he had no gun, at 
the same time turning about to an Indian who was behind him laughed 
heartily, and by all his gestures seemed delighted at the horrid scene. 

"Girty then came up to me and bade me prepare for death. He said, 
however, I was not to die at that place, but to be burnt at the Shawanese 
towns. He swore that I need not expect to escape death, but should suffer 
it in all its extremities. 

"He then observed that some prisoners had given him to understand 
that if our people had him they would not hurt him. For his part, he said, 
he did not believe it, but desired to know my opinion of the matter; but, 
being at that time in great anguish and distress for the torments the colonel 
was suffering before my eyes, as well as the expectation of undergoing the 
same fate in two days, I made little or no answer. He expressed a great 
■deal of ill-will for Colonel Gibson, and said he was one of his greatest ene- 
mies, and more to the same purpose, to all of which I paid very little atten- 
tion. 

"Colonel Crawford, at this period of his sufferings, besought the Almighty 
to have mercy on his soul, spoke very low, and bore his torments with the 
most manly fortitude. He continued in all the extremities of pain for an 
hour and three-quarters or two hours longer, as near as I can judge, when 
at last, being almost exhausted, he lay down on his belly. They then 
scalped him, and repeatedly threw the scalp in my face, telling me ' that 
"was my great captain.' An old squaw, whose appearance every way an- 
swered the ideas people entertain of the devil, got a board, took a parcel of 
coals and ashes, and laid them on his back and head, after he had been 
scalped. He then raised himself upon his feet and began to walk around 
the post. They next put a burning stick to him, as usual, but he seemed 
more insensible of pain than before. 

"The Indian fellow who had me in charge now took me away to Cap- 
tain Pipe's house, about three-quarters of a mile from the place of the 
colonel's execution. I was bound all night, and thus prevented from seeing 
the last of the horrid spectacle. Next morning, being June 12th, the Indian 
untied me, painted me black, and we set off for the Shawanese town, which 
he told me was somewhat less than forty miles distant from that place. We 
soon came to the place where the colonel had been burnt, as it was partly 
in our way. I saw his bones lying among the remains of the fire, almost 
burnt to ashes. I suppose after he was dead they laid his body on the fire. 
The Indian told me that was my big captain, and gave the scalp halloo." 



39° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The practice of nursing and rearing their infants is unique and interest- 
ing, and pecuHar to the extremities of savage Hfe. The cradle is a simple 
contrivance; a board, shaven thin, is its basis. On this the infant is placed 
with its back to the board. At a proper distance, near the lower end, is a 
projecting piece of wood. This is covered with the softest moss, and when 
the cradle is perpendicular, the heels of the infant rest upon it. Before the 
head of the child there is a hoop, projecting four or five inches from its face. 
Two holes are bored on either side of the upper end of the board, for the 
passage of deer-skin or other cord. This is intended to extend around the 
forehead of the mother, to support the cradle when on her back. Around 
the board and the child bandages are wrapped, beginning at the feet, and 
winding around until they reach the breast and shoulders, binding the arms 
and hands to the child's sides. There is great security in this contrivance. 
The Indian woman, a slave to the duties of the lodge, with all the fondness 
of a mother, can not devote that constant attention to her child which her 
heart constantly prompts her to bestow. She must often leave it, to chop 
wood, build fires, cook, erect the wigwam or take it down, make a canoe, 
or bring home the game which her lord has killed, but which he disdains to 
shoulder. While thus employed, the infant charge is safe in its rude cradle. 
• If she place it against a tree, or a corner of her lodge, it may be knocked 
•down in her absence. If it fall backward, then all is safe. If it fall side- 
ways, the arms and hands being confined, no injury is sustained; if on the 
front, the projecting hoop guards the face and head. The Indian mother 
would find it difficult to contrive anything better calculated for her purpose. 
To this early discipline in the cradle, the Indian owes his erect form; and 
to the practice, when old enough to be released from the bandages, of brac- 
ing himself against his mother's waist, with his toes inward, may be traced 
the origin of his straightforward gait, and the position of his foot in walking, 
which latter is confirmed afterward by treading in the trails scarcely wider 
than his foot, cut many inches deep by the travel of centuries. ; 

When the child has attained sufficient strength to sit alone, or to walk 
about, the cradle is dispensed with. Then it is taken by the mother and 
placed upon her lap, she being in a sitting posture; or, if she have occasion 
to make a long journey, a blanket, or part of a blanket, is provided — two 
•corners of which she passes around her middle. Holding these with one 
hand, she takes the child by the arm and shoulder with the other, and slings 
it upon her back. The child clasps with iis arms its mother's neck, presses 
its feet and toes inward against and, as far as the length of its legs will 
permit, around her waist. The blanket is then drawn over the child by the 
remaining two corners, which are now brought over the mother's shoulder, 
who, grasping all four of these in her hand before her, pursues her way. 
If the child require nourishment, and the mother has time, the blanket is 
thrown off, and the child is taken by the arm and shoulder, most adroitly 
replaced upon the ground, received upon the lap of the mother, and nout- 



I THE FOOD OF THE EARLY SETTLERS. 39I 

ished. Otherwise, the breast is pressed upward, in the direction of the 
child's mouth, till it is able to reach the source of its nourishment, whilfe 
the mother pursues her journey. 

We have learned from the earlier chapters of this history that, for several 
jf years, the forest rangers were mainly corraled and sheltered in the principal 
ft forts, on account of the dangers of the woods from predatory bands of In- 
dians, and the need of co-operative defense on the part of the whites. While 
every man was skilled in the use of the rifle, in the arts of the hunter, and 
in the tactics of Indian fighting, there was need for system and vigilance in 
; all these, especially so in hunting. The latter occupation was not followed 
■ simply for sport, nor was sport the main object usually. Through these ini- 
i tial years of trial, the woods supplied the pioneers with the greater amount 
j5 of their subsistence. ^ At intervals, the spoils of the hunter were the only 
k resource for food, for it was no uncommon thing for families to live several 
|j months without a mouthful of bread, vegetables, or fruits, saving grapes, 
t; nuts, or the wild fruits of the woods. Oftentimes there was no breakfast 
f. until it was obtained by the early morning hunt. There were always parties 
, detailed for the purpose of procuring a daily supply of wild meat for a con- 
stant reliance. When this party was more than ordinarily unsuccessful, and 
. the supply became inconveniently short, it was re-enforced by others from 
; day to day, until all danger of shortage was over. Nor must it be supposed 
k that the game was hunted for a supply of food altogether. Fur and peltry 
'j 'were the people's money; they had little else to exchange for rifles, ammu- 
nition, iron, and other indispensables. 

For the first year or two, patches of corn, or maize, with pumpkins, 
beans, melons, and other vegetables, were planted in the near vicinity of 
ti the forts, and the products of this partial culture gave great relief to the 
I limited bills of fare to which the people had been hitherto subjected. Some 
'S fruit trees were planted, and the first appearances of homelike surroundings 
established. Year by year, the adventurous backwoodsmen would go out 
* farther away from the stockade fort, and select some favorite spot for a cabin 
I -.and clearing, and, with the ready and co-operating hands of his comrade 
I -neighbors, proceed to cut down the trees, hew and prepare the timbers, and 
^ erect the cabin for a home. This rude structure was provisioned in ever.y 

■ simple way for defense against the assaults of savages. Around' these iso- 
l lated cabins the same clearings and plantings were made as around the 

■ stockade forts, and from these beginnings grew, in time, additional settle- 
' 'inents and the tender plants of the new civilization. 

' ' The fall and early winter formed the season for hunting deer, and the 

whole of winter and part of spring for bears and fur-skinned animals. It 

,was a customary saying that fur is good during every month of the year in 

(Which the letter R occurs. As soon as the autumn leaves were well down, 

■ -and the weather became rainy, accompanied with light snows,' after acting 

I Doddridge's Notes. 



392 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the part of husbandman, the hunting fever took possession of the settlers. 
They became uneasy at home. Everything about them became disagree- 
able. The house was too warm, the feather bed too soft, and even the good 
Avife was not thought, for the time being, a proper companion. The mind 
of the hunter was wholly absorbed with the camp and the chase. They 
would rise early in the morning at this season, walk hastily out, look anx- 
iously to the woods, and snuff the autumnal winds with the highest rapture; 
then return into the house and cast a quick and attentive look at the rifle, 
which was always suspended to a joist by a couple of buck-horns, or little 
wooden forks. The hunting dog, understanding the intentions of his master, 
would wag his tail, and by every blandishment in his power express his 
readiness to accompany him to the woods. A day was soon appointed for 
the march of the little cavalcade to the camp. Two or three horses, with 
pack-saddles, were loaded with breadstuff, blankets, and everything else 
requisite for the use of the hunter. The hunter's camp we have described 
in a former chapter. It was located to shelter it from the winds and foul 
weather, and where the prowling Indians would be least likely to find it. 

Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was 
nothing of skill and calculation. On the contrary, the hunter, before he 
set out in the morning, was informed, by the state of the weather, in what 
situation he might reasonably expect to meet with his game; whether upon 
the bottoms, sides, or tops of the hills. In stormy weather, the deer always 
seek the most sheltered places, and the leeward side of the hills. In rainy 
weather, in which there is not much wind, they keep in the open woods on 
the highest ground. 

In every situation it was requisite for the hunter to ascertain the course 
of the wind, so as to get the leeward of the game. This he effected by put- 
ting his finger in his mouth, and holding it there until it became warm, then 
holding it above his head; the side which first became cold showed which 
way the wind blew. 

As it was requisite, too, for the hunter to know the cardinal points, he 
had only to observe the trees to ascertain them. The bark of an aged tree 
is thicker and much rougher on the north than on the south side. The same 
thing may be said of the moss ; it is much thicker and stronger on the north 
than on the south side of the trees. 

The whole business of the hunter consists of a succession of intrigues. 
From morning till night he was on the alert to gain the wind of his game, 
and to approach it without being discovered. If he succeeded in killing 
a deer, he skinned it, and hung it up out of the reach of the wolves, and 
immediately resumed the chase till the close of the evening, when he bent 
his course toward the camp. When he arrived there, he kindled up a fire, 
and together with his fellow hunter cooked his supper. The supper finished, 
the adventures of the day furnished the tales for the evening. The spike 
buck, the two and three-pronged buck, the doe, and barren doe, figured 



A CABIN-RAISING. 393 

' through their anecdotes with great advantage. It should seem that after 
hunting awhile on the same ground, the hunters became acquainted with 

' nearly all the gangs of deer within their range, so as to know each flock 
of them when they saw them. Often some old buck, by the means of his 
superior sagacity and watchfulness, saved his little family from the hunter's 
skill, by giving timely notice of his approach. The cunning of the hunter 
and that of the old buck were staked against each other, and it frequently 

i happened that at the conclusion of the hunting season, the old fellow was 

- left the free uninjured tenant of the forest; but if his rival succeeded in 

■ bringing him down, the victory was followed by no small amount of boast- 
ing on the part of the conqueror. 

When the weather was not suitable for hunting, the skins and carcasses 
' of the game were brought in and disposed of. 

' Many of the hunters rested from their labors on the Sabbath day; some 
from a motive of piety; others said that when they hunted on Sunday, they 
were sure to have bad luck during the rest of the week. 

1 "The house-warming was the usual manner of settling a young couple 

■ in the world. 

"A spot was selected on a piece of land of one of the parents, for their 
habitation. A day was appointed, shortly after their marriage, for com- 

1 mencing the work of building their cabin. The fatigue-party consisted of 
f choppers, whose business it was to fell the trees and cut them off at proper 
'1 lengths ; a man with a team for hauling them to the place and arranging 

them, properly assorted, at the sides and ends of the building ; a carpenter, 
if such he might be called, whose business it was to search the woods for a 

2 proper tree for making clapboards for the roof. The tree for this purpose 
[ must be straight-grained, and from three to four feet in diameter. The 
^ "boards were split four feet long, with a large frow, and as wide as the timber 
'■ would allow. They were used without planing or shaving. Another division 

was employed in getting puncheons for the floor of the cabin. This was 

- done by splitting trees, about eighteen inches in diameter, and hewing the 
^ faces of them with a broad ax. They were half the length of the floor they 

were intended to make. The materials for the cabin were mostly prepared 
' on the first day, and ^metimes the foundation laid in the evening. The 
: second day was allotted for the raising. 

"In the morning of the next day the neighbors collected for the raising. 
The first thing to be done was the election of four corner men, whose busi- 
ness it was to notch and place the logs. The rest of the company furnished 
them with the timbers. In the meantime, the boards and puncheons were 
collected for the floor and roof; so that by the time the cabin was a few 
rounds high, the sleepers and floor began to be laid. The door was made 
by sawing or cutting the logs in one side, so as to make an opening about 
three feet wide. This opening was secured by upright pieces of timber 

I Doddridge's Notes. 



394 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

about three inches thick, through which holes were bored into the ends 
of the logs for the purpose of pinning them fast. A similar opening, but 
wider, was made at the end for the chimney. This was built of logs, and 
made large, to admit of a back and jambs of stone. At the square, two 
end logs projected a foot or eighteen inches beyond the wall, to receive the 
butting poles, as they were called, against which the ends of the first row 
of clapboards was supported. The roof was formed by making the end logs 
shorter, until a single log formed the comb of the roof. On these logs the 
clapboards were placed, the ranges of them lapping some distance over those 
next below them, and kept in their places by logs placed at proper distances 
upon them. 

"The roof, and sometimes the floor, were finished on the same day of 
the raising. A third day was commonly spent by a few carpenters in level- 
ing off the floor, making a clapboard door and a table. This, last was made 
of a split slab, and supported by four round legs set in auger-holes. Some 
three-legged stools were made in the same manner. Some pins, stuck in 
the logs at the back of the house, supported some clapboards which served 
for shelves for the table furniture. A single fork, placed with its lower end 
in a hole in the floor, and the upper end fastened to a joist, served for a 
bedstead, by placing a pole in the fork with one end through a crack between 
the logs of the wall. This front pole was crossed by a shorter one within 
the fork, with its outer end through another crack. From the front pole, 
through a crack between the logs of the end of the house, the boards were 
,pu.t on, which formed the bottom of the bed. Sometimes other poles were 
pinned to the fork a little distance above these, for the purpose of support- 
ing the front and foot of the bed, while the walls were the supports of its 
back and head. A few pegs around the walls for a display of the coats 
of the women and hunting-shirts of the men, and two small forks or buck- 
horns to a joist for the rifle and shot-pouch, completed the carpenter work. 
• ' "In the meantime, masons were at work. With the heart pieces of the 
timber of which the clapboards were made, they made billets for chunking 
u]) the cracks between the logs of the cabin and chimney; a large bed of 
mortar was made for daubing up these cracks ; a few stones formed the back 
and jambs of the chimney. 

'•The cabin being finished, the ceremony of house-warming took place^ 
before the young couple were permitted to move into it. 

"The house-warming was a dance of a whole night's continuance, made 
ivip of the relations of the bride and groom and their neighbors. On the day 
■following, the young couple took possession of their new mansion. 

" In giving the history of the state of the mechanic arts as they were 
exercised at an early period of the settlement of this country, we present 
a people, driven by necessity to perform works of mechanical skill, far be- 
yond what a person enjoying all the advantages of civilization would expect 
from a population placed in such destitute "circirmstafices. 



PIONEER METHOD OF GRINDING MEAL. 395 

' "The reader will naturally ask, where were their mills for grinding 

rain? Where their tanners for making leather? Where their smith's shops 

ir making and repairing their farming utensils? Who were their carpen- 

rs, tailors, cabinet-workmen, shoemakers, and weavers? The answer is, 

lose manufacturers did not exist; nor had they any tradesmen, who were 

rofessedly such. All the families. were under the necessity of doing every- 

'aing for themselves as well as they could. The hominy block and hand-mills 

>ere in use in most of the houses. The first was made of a large block of 

"^ood about three feet long, with an excavation burned in one end, wide at 

tdetop and narrow at the bottom, so that the action of the pestle on the 

lottom threw the corn up to the sides toward the top of it, from whence it 

ontinually fell down into the center. 

"In consequence of this movement, the whole mass of the grain was 
;iretty equally subjected to the strokes of the pestle. In the fall of the year, 
!</hile the Indian corn was soft, the block and pestle did very well for making 
aeal for johnny-cake and mush ; but were rather slow when the corn be- 
vame hard. 

"The sweep was sometimes used to lessen the toil of pounding grain 
'nto meal. This was a pole of some springy, elastic wood, thirty feet long 
for more; the butt end was placed under the side of a house, or a large 
iltump; this pole was supported by two forks, placed about one-third of its 
ength from the butt end, so as to elevate the small end about fifteen feet 
j-rom the ground; to this was attached, by a large mortise, a piece of sap- 
|*ing about five or six inches in diameter, and eight or ten feet long. The 
cower end of this was shaped so as to answer for a pestle. A pin of wood 
vas put through it, at a proper height, so that two persons could work at 
>he sweep at once. This simple machine very much lessened the labor and 
'expedited the work. 

'"" "From the saltpetre caves, the first settlers made plenty of excellent 
f;unpowder by the means Of those sweeps and mortars. 

" A machine, still more simple than the mortar and pestle, was used for 
; naking meal while the corn was^too soft to be beaten.. It was called a 
{''rater. This was a half-circular piece of tin, perforated with a punch from 
j he concave side, and nailed by its edges to a block of wood. The ears of 
l':Qrn were rubbed on the rough edge of the holes, while the meal fell through 
hem on the board or block, to which the grater was nailed, which, being in 
r I slanting direction, discharged the meal into a cloth or bovvl placed for its 
eception. This, to be sure, was a slow way of making meal; but neces- 
sity has no law. 

"The hand-mill was better than the mortar and grater. It was made of 

F wo circular stones, the lowest of which was called the bed-stone, the upper 

')ne the runner. These were placed in a hoop, with a spout for discharging 

he meal. A staff" was let into a hole in the upper surface of the runner, 

j lear the outer edge, and its upper end through a hole in a board fastened 



396 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

to a joist above, so that two persons could be employed in turning the millj 
at the same time. The grain was put into the opening in the runner by 
hand. The mills are still in use in Palestine, the ancient country of the 
Jews. To a mill of this sort our Saviour alluded when, with reference to the 
destruction of Jerusalem, He said : ' Two women shall be grinding at a mill, 
the one shall be taken and the other left.' 

"Instead of bolting cloths, sifters were in general use. These were 
made of deer skins in the state of parchment, stretched over a hoop and 
perforated with a hot wire. 

"The clothing was all of domestic manufacture. They had no other 
resource for clothing, and this, indeed, was a poor one. The crops of flax 
often failed, and the sheep were destroyed by the wolves. Linsey, which 
is made of flax and wool, the former the chain and the latter the filling, was 
the warmest and most substantial cloth they could make. Almost every house 
•contained a loom, spinning, and hand cards, and almost every woman was 
a weaver, a spinner, and a carder. 

" Every family tanned its own leather. The tan-vat was a large trough 
sunk to the upper edge in the ground. A quantity of bark was easily ob- 
tained every spring in clearing and fencing land. This, after drying, was 
brought in, and in wet days was shaved and pounded on a block of wood 
with an ax or mallet. Ashes were used in place of lime for taking off the 
hair. Bear's oil, hog's lard, and tallow answered the place of fish oil. The 
leather, to be sure, was coarse; but it was substantially good. The opera- 
tion of currying was performed by a drawing-knife with its edge turned, 
after the manner of a currying-knife. The blacking for the leather was made 
of soot and hog's lard. 

"Almost every family contained its own tailors and shoemakers. Those 
Avho could not make shoes could make shoe-packs. These, like moccasins, 
were made of a single piece on the top of the foot. This was about two 
inches broad and circular at the lower end. To this the main piece of 
leather was sewed, with a gathering stitch. The seam behind was like that 
of a moccasin. To the shoe-pack a sole ^as sometimes added. The women 
did the tailor work. They could all cut out and make hunting-shirts, leg- 
gins, and drawers. 

"The state of society which exists in every country at an early period 
of its settlements is well calculated to call into action every native mechan- 
ical genius. So it happened in this country. There was in almost every 
neighborhood some one whose natural ingenuity enabled him to do many 
things for himself and his neighbors far above what could have been reason- 
ably expected. With the few tools which they brought with them into the 
country, they certainly performed wonders. Their plows, harrows, with 
their wooden teeth, and sleds were, in many instances, well made. Their 
cooperware, which comprehended everything for holding milk and water, 
was generally pretty well executed. The cedarware, by having alternatel} 



SPORTS OF EARLY TIMES. 397 

' white and red stave, was then thought beautiful. Many of their puncheon 
oors were very neat, their joints close, and the top even and smooth, 
'heir looms, although heavy, did very well. Those who could not exercise 
lese mechanic arts were under the necessity of giving labor or barter to 
: iheir neighbors in exchange for the use of them, so far as their necessities 
'equired. 

"One important pastime of the boys was that of imitating the noise of 

very bird and beast in the woods. This faculty was not merely a pastime, 

ut a very necessary part of education, on account of its utility in certain 

ircumstances. The imitations of the gobbling and other sounds of wild 

,'arkeys often brought those keen eyed and ever watchful tenants of the 

'orest within the reach of their rifle. The bleating of the fawn brought its 

am to her death in the same way. The hunter often collected a company 

->f mopish owls to the trees about his camp, and amused himself with their 

Hoarse screaming. His howl would raise and obtain responses from a pack 

'f w#ves, so as to inform him of their neighborhood, as well as guard him 

i^gainst their depredations. 

P "This imitative faculty was sometimes requisite as a measure of precau- 
"ion in war. The Indians, when scattered about in a neighborhood, often 
Collected together, or lured their enemies to danger, by imitating turkeys by 
Hay and wolves or owls by night. In similar situations, our people did the 
'ame. There was often witnessed the consternation of a whole settlement 
""n consequence of a few screeches of owls. An early and correct use of 
his imitative faculty was considered as an indication that its possessor would 
')ecome, in due time, a good hunter and valiant warrior. Throwing the 
. omahawk was another boyish sport, in which many acquired considerable 
-kill. The tomahawk, with its handle of a certain length, will make a given 
''lumber of turns in a given distance; say in five steps, it will strike with the 
'-dge, the handle downward; at the distance of seven and a half, it will 
'.trike with the edge, the handle upward, and so on. A little experience en- 
abled the boy to measure the distance with his eye, when walking through 
•he woods, and strike a tree with his tomahawk in any way he chose. 

"The athletic sports of running, jumping, and wrestling were the pas- 
imes of boys, in common with the men. A well-grown boy, at the age 
")f twelve or thirteen years, was furnished with a small rifle and shot-pouch. 
'He then became a fort soldier and had his port-hole assigned him. Hunt- 
ing squirrels, turkeys, and raccoons soon made him expert in the use of his 
('gun. 

i' "Dancing was the principal amusement of the young people of both 
'sexes. Their dances, to be sure, were of the simplest form — three and 
jTour-handed reels and jigs. Country dances, cotillions, and minuets were 
unknown. 

"Shooting at a mark was a common diversion among the men when their 
stock of ammunition would allow it ; this, however, was far from being 



3g8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

always the case. The present mode of shooting off-hand was not then much 
in practice. This mode was not considered as any trial of the value of a 
gun, nor, indeed, as much of a test of the skill of a marksman. Their 
shooting \vas usually from a rest, and at as great a distance as the length 
and weight of the barrel of the gun would throw a ball on a horizontal 
level. Such was their regard to accuracy in those sportive trials of their 
rifles, and of their own skill in the use of them, that they often put moss or 
some other soft substance on the log or stump from which they shot, for fear 
of having the bullet thrown from the mark by the spring of the barrel. 
When the rifle was held to the side of a tree for a rest, it was pressed against 
it as lightly as possible, for the same reason. 

"Rifles of former times were different from those of modern date — the 
flint lock, with very fine sights and accurate range. Few of them carried 
more than forty-five bullets to the pound. Bullets of a less size were not 
thought sufificiently heavy for hunting or war." 

^"The settlement of the transmontane wilderness was unlike that # the 
present new country of the United States. Emigrants from the Atlantic 
cities, and from most points in the Western interior, now embark upon 
steamboats or other craft, and, carrying with them all the conveniences and 
comforts of civilized life — indeed, many of its luxuries — are, in a few days, 
without toil, danger, or exposure, transported to their new abodes, and in a 
few months are surrounded with the appendages of home, of civilization, 
and the blessings of law and of society. The wilds of Dakota and Ne- 
braska, by the agency of steam or the stalwart arms of W^estern boatmen, 
are at once transformed into the settlements of a commercial and civilized 
people. Kansas City and St. Paul, six months after they are laid off, have 
their stores and their workshops, their artisans and their mechanics. The 
mantua-maker and the tailor arrive in the same boat with the carpenter and 
mason. The professional man and the printer quickly follow. In the suc- 
ceeding year, the piano, the drawing-room, the restaurant, the billiard-table, 
the church bell, the village, and the city in miniature are all found, while 
the neighboring interior is yet a wilderness and a desert. The town and 
comfort, taste and urbanity are first; the clearing, the farm-house, the 
wagon road, and the improved country second. It was far different on 
the frontier in Kentucky. At first, a single Indian trail was the only en- 
trance to the eastern border of it, and for many years admitted only of the 
hunter and the pack-horse." 

Thus civilization, with all its comforts, conveniences, and luxuries, is 
borne forward with the tides of emigration ; and the contrast of to-day with 
a century ago but amazes us, though familiar with the facts, with the mar- 
velous achievements of human invention, art, and enterprise,- in this com- 
paratively brief period of the world's history. The progress in these has 
outstripped all that was accomplished in the four thousand years previous. 

I Ramsey's Anr.als. ■ ■ * ■ ^ ' - ■ 



CORN, THE PIONEER S RELIANCE. 399 

, md yet we realize that we are to-day but in the initial stages of the world's 
i(-egeneration, material, moral, and intellectual. 

1 "Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and in such a 

state of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements, 

;.he truth appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among 

lithe most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health; 

tthey were practically equal; common danger made them mutually depend- 

ifent; brilliant hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on; and as 

"there was ample room for all, and as each newcomer increased individual 

•and general security, there was indeed little room for that envy, jealousy,, 

and hatred, which constitute a large proportion of human misery in older 

r-societies. Never were the story, the joke, the song, and the laugh better 

;ienjoyed than among the hewed blocks, or puncheon stools, around the 

rroaring log-fire of the early Western settler. The lyre of Apollo was not 

hailed with more delight in primitive Greece than the advent of the first 

(fiddler among the dwellers of the wilderness; and the polished daughters of 

• the East never enjoyed themselves half so well, moving to the music of a 

full band, upon the elastic floor of their ornamented ball-room, as did the 

^daughters of the emigrants, keeping time to a self-taught fiddler, on the 

vbare earth or puncheon floor of the primitive log-cabin. The smile of 

ithe polished beauty is the wave of the lake, where the breeze plays gently 

) over it, and her movement is the gentle stream which drains it ; but the 

vdaugh of the log-cabin is the gush of nature's fountain, and its movement 

f its leaping water. - 

e "On the frontier, the diet was necessarily plain and homely, but exceed- 

■ ingly nutritive. The Goshen of America ^ furnished the richest milk, the 
"( finest butter, and the most savory and delicious meats. In their rude 
c cabins, with their scanty and inartificial furniture, no people ever enjoyed 
. in wholesome food a greater variety or a superior quality of the necessaries 
i of life. For bread, the Indian corn was almost exclusively used. Of all 
i: the farinacea, corn is best adapted to the condition of a pioneer people. 

■ Without that grain, the frontier settlements could not have been formed and 
I maintained. It is the nearest to a never-failing crop, and requires the least 
~ preparation of the ground, is most congenial to a virgin soil, and needs only 
1 the least amount of labor in its culture in such soil, while it comes to ma- 
1* turity in the shortest time. It also requires the least care and trouble in 

preserving it. It may safely stand all winter upon the stalk, without injury 
from the weather, or apprehension of damage by disease or the accidents to 
I which other grains are subject. Neither smut, nor rust, nor weavil, nor 
If storm, will seriously injure it. After its maturity, but little preparation is 
I- needed to store it in the granary. It has the further advantage over all 
• other breadstuffs that it requires, in fitting it for food, few culinary utensils, 
■ and neither yeast, sugar, spices, soda, potash, nor other concomitants, can 

I Ramsey's Annals. 2 Kendall. 3 Butler. 



400 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

even be used without positive injury to the reHshable hoe-cake or corn-pone. 
With the meal from grain grown in the corn belt between latitude thirty-five 
and forty-two, ground and sifted with a rather coarse grit, and simply and 
quickly baked, and eaten fresh and warm, there is no bread more palatable 
and nutritious. The nearest it is made, in the cooking, to preserve the 
flavor of parched corn, which every person relishes, the more will it be 
prized and relished. Any spicing or sweetening, or addition other than 
buttermilk, soda, and salt, is sure to destroy this natural flavor, and spoil 
the bread; and from this mistaken method in the culinary management, the 
making of good corn-bread has, in most families, become a lost art. 

There is a departure from this primary method, by which a most deli- 
cious egg-bread, as it is commonly called, is made. The same cornmeal is 
the body; and to this is added buttermilk, soda, and salt, eggs, milk, and 
some lard. Good recipes for both methods may be found in the Bluegrass 
cook book, made up by the most skilled and intelligent Kentucky house- 
keepers. 

To all this may be added, that it is not only cheap and palatable, but 
unquestionably the most wholesome and nutritive food. The largest and 
healthiest, if not the best developed, people in the world have been reared 
upon it almost exclusively, as known in the robust race of men, giants in 
miniature, which, two or three generations ago, was found upon the frontier. 
Distinguished surgeons bore testimony that, during the late civil war, the 
wounded of the Confederate soldiers who had lived almost entirely on roast- 
ing-ears and parched corn or meal cured easily and rapidly, rarely dying 
of gangrene or mortification; while just the reverse of this was true of the 
Federal wounded soldiers, who were fed on salted meats and stale bread 
from the army rations. 

Of all the duties and cares which most seriously engaged the attention 
of the backwoodsmen, none were of more concern than those of the measures 
of self-defense against the ever insidious, wily, and implacable Indian foe. 
To the mind of the settler, he was suspiciously present everywhere and at 
all times. If the cabin door was unbarred and opened in the morning, the 
missive of death from gun or bow might fly from behind a tree, a hillock, 
or a motte of cane or brush. If the good wife or servant stepped out to 
milk the cows or bring a pail of water from the spring, the husband or mas- 
ter of the house could not always avert a tragedy, though he stood on watch 
with ready rifle. If he, himself, went out to his fields or woods, to do the 
work of the husbandman, there was not a minute of time when the depend- 
ent inmates of the house were entirely exempt from the echo of the deadly 
rifle from ambush, or the scalp halloo that sent tidings of another victim to 
savage atrocity, and wails of sorrow to anguished hearts. In scurring squads 
of five or ten, or in larger bands of twenty or one hundred, these elfin guer- 
rillas of the forest, terrible and remorseless in their methods of predatory 
warfare, roved the country at will, to prey upon life and property. 



CONSTANT DANGER. 40I 

They chose some favorable seasons of the year, more than others; but 

no season was exempt from their raids. Murder, pillage, and arson being 

held as cardinal virtues toward an enemy, and all the world outside of them- 

i selves being held as enemies, they raided the earth, to murder, pillage, and 

I destroy to the fullest license of savage diabolism. He who bore back to his 

L tribe the greater number of bloody scalps of men, women, and infants, or 

,.. the largest amount of stolen plunder, or the story of the most horrid incen- 

'. diarisms, was listened to with intensest pride and applause, as in the carni- 

val of celebrations he struck the post, gyrated in the orgies of the wild war 

dance, and rehearsed his deeds of infamy in the intoned chants of his 

^ ecstatic fury. 

We may easily imagine how much the mind of every member of the 
household was pre-occupied with the apprehensions of hourly dangers, 
. from such an omnipresent enemy as beset the pioneers in their first trans- 
montane experiences. The cares and burdens of life, such as are common 
to all, were theirs. But pre-eminent also, were the thoughts and cares of 
1 self preservation from this danger, which spread its pall of desolation every- 
where, and left mementos of wasting grief in the widowers, the widows, 
, and the orphans, to be found in almost every family in the land. To-day, 
I in the repose and security of established society, we find it difficult to realize 
, that our brave and daring and noble ancestry could have chosen to ex- 
L change the comforts and safety of civilization for the perils and hardships 
L. of the untamed wilderness that lay between the morning shadows of the 
j: mountains and the great Mississippi river. But over there, in the far-off 
L West, romance and reality had invested the luxuriant soil, the balmy climate, 
. and the exuberant life, with such enchantment of promise for the future, 
that all looked forward to an Eden of happiness, in the final fruitions of ad- 
[i venture. These ancestors staked life, the homes of civilization, and fortune 
[j on the issues of the change. 

I Around the fireside, in the field of daily work, and at the neighborly 
gatherings, the episodes and incidents and stories of Indian warfare inter- 
ij ested parents and children, master and servant, and neighbors and friends, 
\ far more than those of the hunt, the gossip of the community, or the general 
news of the day. Of Indian hostilities, of Indian character, and of In- 
i. dian atrocities, even the children heard recitals, until all these came to be 
. looked upon as necessary parts of the life they had to live. The earliest 
lessons learned by the children were the duty and methods to fight Indians. 
, Hence, the mother or maiden, the child ten years old, and the faithful col- 
ored servant, beside the husband and master, were ever trained and ready 
to resist the attack of the savage, with gun, or ax, or knife, if the emergency 
called them into action. Many an instance of an Indian slain by the heroic 
defense of mother or wife, of the gallant boy, and of the brave and faithful 
colored servant, was rehearsed among the fireside stories of the day, some 
of which we have incidentally given in the narrative of this history. 

26 



402 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The circumstances of such a life of perpetual warfare, which were indi- 
vidualized in every household, and to every member thereof, irresistibly 
tended to inspire a spirit of combativeness, and to cultivate a habit of in- 
tensely-active belligerency. The impulsive and excitable characteristics thus 
fostered and developed to almost an abnormal extent, for the full period of a 
generation, the lapse of time through the two succeeding generations until 
to-day, has not been sufficient to entirely eradicate. The descendants of 
the earliest race of Kentuckians are yet an impetuous, strong-willed, and 
excitable people, traits which came to them by honest inheritance, and from 
sires whose faults were ever less conspicuous than their honest and generous 
natures and noble deeds. 

If the Indian could be trained to imperturbable stoicism in the presence 
of dangers and sufferings, no less was the child of the forester taught to be 
iron-nerved and inflexible in the emergency of assault and conflict with the 
most desperate of foes. Courage was the cardinal virtue, and an indis- 
pensable one. To halt or hesitate in the hour of duty, to evince the emotions 
of tremulous fear or of unnerved timidity, was to invite the suspicions or 
imputations of cowardice, not less to be dreaded than the alternative of 
death itself. Such a life was but a school of experience, in which every 
trait of manhood needed amid the vicissitudes of war, the privations of 
frontier life, and the individualities of isolation, was developed. 

Religion and Church Organizations had their rude and chaotic beginnings 
during the ordeal years of pioneer life. The first ministers of the religion 
of Christ came out, as did their comrades, as adventurers to spy out the 
land, and, with a single exception or two, drifted back and forth to either 
side of the mountain range, in the restless currents of humanity that ebbed 
and flowed in the same channels for years. These found many of their 
brethren in the drift of the current, broken away from their old church 
moorings in colonies or States, and afloat with the uncertain tides upon 
which they had thrown themselves. 

1 Owing to the constant alarm from savage depredations, and the other 
stirring incidents peculiar to new settlements amid the wilds of an unbroken 
forest, there seemed to be little concern manifested for religion. The min- 
isters had but few opportunities for preaching, yet they did preach at the 
stations, and with effect on the minds of many, if not on all. They, of 
course, were compelled to adapt themselves to the fare and usages of the 
people around them, for it was no fit time for respect of one person more 
than another. 

2 Though the Indians had resolved that Kentucky should never be occu- 
pied, yet they held the unctuous soil, and the inviting attractions with which 
nature had adorned the land, and some made up their minds to return here, 
and here to live and to die. They were no less determined in the execu- 
tion of this resolve than other pioneers. 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 416. 2 Benedict's History of the Baptists, pp. 212-28. 




ORGANIZATION OF BAPTISTS. 403 

The Baptists, by the coincidences of antiquity, the spirit of aggressive 
evangelism, and their predominance among the immigrating element, may 

, best lay claim to being called the pioneers in religion of all the Protestant 

!," organizations of the day. They came with the earliest permanent settlers. 

, In 1776, as we have before mentioned, Rev. 

r William Hickman commenced his labors in 

', the Gospel ministry. ^ We find him, in that 

, year, preaching at Harrodsburg. He was 

jr the first to proclaim the unsearchable riches 

V of Christ in the valley of Kentucky. He was 

j on a tour of observation merely, and, after 

it a stay of several months, returned to Vir- 
ginia, remained for several years, and then 

I located in this State. For fifty years, he 

,', faithfully labored in his adopted field. In 

it 1779, John Tylor, Joseph Reding, Lewis 

;; Lunsford, and several other ministers of Vir- 

• ginia, visited Kentucky. 

2 In 1780, many Baptists removed to this rev. william hickwian, 

State, chiefly from Virginia; but it was not until the next year that there was 

an organized church. This was the Gilbert's creek church. When Lewis 

t Craig left Spottsylvania county, Virginia, most of his large church there 

;> came with him. They were constituted when they started, and were an 

organized church on the road; wherever they stopped, they could transact 

■. church business. They settled at Craig's station, on Gilbert's creek, a few 

'i miles east of where the town of Lancaster, Garrard county, is now situated. 

» There were now a number of efficient ministers in Kentucky. 

In 1782, several other churches are known to have been constituted, 
;; viz: Severn's valley ^ after Elizabethtown, and Nolin, both now in Hardin 

county; also Cedar creek, now in Nelson county. * 

; In 1783, the first Baptist church, and the first worshiping assembly of 

' any order, was organized on South Elkhorn, five miles south of Lexington, 

r by Lewis Craig, principally out of members dismissed from the church on 

Gilbert's creek. This church was for forty years one of the most prosperous 

churches in the State; but its candlestick has been removed. ° 

After the close of the American Revolution, a flood of Baptists poured 

' into Kentucky, chiefly from Virginia, and churches began to spring up 

everywhere in the wilderness. It was still a time of great peril. Before 

houses of worship were erected, the worshipers would assemble in the 

' forest, each man with his gun ; sentinels would be placed to guard against 

* surprise from the Indians, while the minister, with a log or stump for his 

1 Taylor's History of Ten Churches, p. 4S. 4 Asplund's Register of 1790, p. 32. 

2 Collins, Vol. I., p. 415. 5 History of Ten Churches, p. 50. 

3 Benedict, Vol. II., p. 542. 



404 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

pulpit, and the heavens for his sounding-board, would dispense the word of 
hfe and salvation. 

"In 1785, three associations were organized, viz: the Elkhorn, compris- 
ing all the Regular Baptist churches then north of the Kentucky and Dix 
rivers; the Salem, comprising all the churches of the same order south of 
those rivers, and the South Kentucky, comprising all the Separate Baptist 
churches in the State. These associations, which were constituted of some 
three or four churches each, increased with great rapidity. In 1790, there 
were attached to them forty-two churches and thirty-one hundred and five 
members, viz: Elkhorn, fifteen churches and thirteen hundred and eighty- 
nine members; Salem, eight churches and four hundred and five members; 
and South Kentucky, nineteen churches and thirteen hundred and eleven 
members. The population of Kentucky at that period was about seventy- 
three thousand. So there was one Baptist to about every twenty-three in- 
habitants. Besides, there were many churches not yet associated, and many 
members just moved into the State who were not yet attached to the 
churches. There were, too, at this period forty-two ordained ministers and 
twenty-one licentiates, or one ordained minister to every eighteen hundred 
and twenty-five of the inhabitants. This was a tolerably fair proportion of 
Baptist leaven to the whole lump of people. ^ 

"Among the ministers of that day were John Gano, Ambrose Dudley,. 
John Taylor, Lewis Craig, William Hickman, Joseph Reding, William E. 
Waller, Augustine Eastin, Moses Bledsoe, John Rice, Elijah Craig, William 
Marshall, and other kindred spirits, men of ardent piety, untiring zeal, in- 
domitable energy of character, of vigorous and well-balanced intellects, and 
in every way adapted to the then state of society. Pioneers to a wilderness 
beset with every danger and every privation, they were the first ministers of 
the brave, the daring, and noble spirits who first settled and subdued this, 
country, such men as the Boones, the Clarks, the Harrods, the Bullitts, the 
Logans, the Floyds, and the Hardins would respect and venerate, and listen 
to with delight and profit. Some of them survived many years the men of 
their own generation. But age seemed to bring to them few of its infirm- 
ities. They retained almost to the last the vigor of their manhood's prime, 
and, although they could not be called literary men, they were nevertheless 
distinguished for their intelligence, for commanding talents, for profound 
acquaintance with the doctrines of the Bible, and were possessed of a 
knowledge of men and things which eminently qualified them to be teach- 
ers and guides of the people. 

"In 1793, an attempt was made to bring about a union between the 
Regular and Separate Baptists, which failing of success, sundry churches of 
the South Kentucky Association withdrew from that body and organized the 
Tate's Creek Association. 2 The oldest churches in this association were 
organized at the dates following : Tate's creek, now in Madison county,. 

I Asplund's Register, p. 33. 2 Benedict, Vol. II., p. 238. 



THE "GREAT REVIVAL." 405 

T-jSe, ; White Oak, in the same county, 1790; and Cedar Creek, now Crab 
Orchard, Lincoln county, 1791. 

"In 1798, the number of churches in the Elkhorn Association being 
thirty-three, and its territory extending from the Holstein on the south to 
Columbus, Ohio, on the north, and from the mouth of Beargrass on the 
west to the Virginia line on the east, it was deemed expedient to dismiss 
the churches north of Licking river for the purpose of forming a new or- 

fganization, and accordingly the Bracken Association was constituted. The 
oldest churches in this association are Limestone Creek, now extinct, near 

.the present city of Maysville, and Washington, both constituted in 1785, 
and Mayslick church, constituted 1791. 

"The general harmony of the denomination was undisturbed, and their 

•progress steady and healthful. In 1799, commenced what is known to this 
day as the 'great revival,' which continued through several years. During 

■ its prevalence, the accessions to the churches in every part of the State were 
unprecedented. The Baptists escaped almost entirely those extraordinary 

^ scenes produced by the jerks, the rolling, and the barking exercises, which 
extensively obtained among some other persuasions of those days. The 
work among the Baptists was deep, solemn, and powerful. During the re- 

L vival, large additions were made to the churches everywhere." 

1 Meanwhile, a settler had reached the county of Madison, who was des- 
tined to exert a wide influence upon the future religious elements of East 

■ Kentucky. Dissatisfied with the laws of Virginia relating to its established 
[church and its ministry, Andrew Tribble had left his home in Louisa county, 
[ Virginia, crossed the wilderness, and found a residence in the northern part 

of Madison county. Before leaving Virginia, he had been a prominent 
: participant in all the struggles for religious liberty which had agitated the 
I churches of that State, and called forth the celebrated remonstrance for 
. religious liberty by James Madison, in 1785. He had been a delegate to 
the famous Separate Baptist Association, which met at Craig's meeting- 
house, in Orange county, in 1771. He had heard the strong dissensions 
between Samuel Harris, John Waller, and Elijah Craig. He had witnessed 
the imprisonment of Lewis Craig and John Waller, at Spottsylvania court- 
, house, in 1768. He had heard their sermons through the windows of the 

■ jail. He found congenial spirits in Samuel Tate and George Boone, already 
settled in Madison county. He organized the Tate's Creek Baptist Church, 
and became its first pastor. This venerable church soon stretched its arms 

J all through Eastern Kentucky, and exerted a wide influence for good from 
Kentucky river to Cumberland Gap. It was the parent of the Tate's 
Creek Baptist Association. Prominent among its pioneer members were 
the Boones, Hoys, Chenaults, Jarmans, Newlands, Woods, Grubbs, Good- 
loes, Lipscombs, and Tinstalls. Besides Andrew Tribble, its pioneer min- 
isters were George Boone, Thomas Jarman, David Chenault, and Richard 

1 Manuscript notes of William Chenault's History of Madison County. 



406 ' HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Morton. The history of this church has been imperfectly written, but its 
influence is engraven upon hundreds of prominent names in the Baptist 
denomination of Kentucky. Three important stations in the neighborhood 
of Boonesborough were founded by its members, and but few events affect- 
ing the welfare of the State, south of the Kentucky river, occurred in which 
they did not participate. 

The Roman Catholic Church sent out a front wave of immigration to the 
wilds of the West, and mainly from the counties of St. Mary, Charles, and 
Prince George, in Maryland, which had been settled under Lord Baltimore, 
and a band of colonists professing the faith of this religion. Already, the 
enthusiasm which had set so many people of the other colonies in motion 
toward the West had extended to Maryland. Though strongly attached to 
the faith of their church, and bold and hardy in adventure, the perils and 
privations of the isolated life of the wilderness established a common sym- 
pathy of secular interest with all settlers, that made them very tolerant to 
each other in their religious differences. ^ Indeed, they and others came 
mainly as adventurers, seeking to improve their worldly fortunes, not as 
Catholics or Protestants ; and it was only through the all-abounding mercy 
of God, that here and there, individuals among them were saved from ship- 
wreck of faith. 

2The Catholics made common cause with their brethren in providing for 
the security of their new homes in the wilderness, and in repelling Indian 
invasions. Several of their number were killed or dragged into captivity 
on their way to Kentucky; others passed through stirring adventures, and 
made hairbreadth escapes. 

The first Catholic emigrants to Kentucky, with whose history we are ac- 
quainted, were Dr. Hart and William Coomes. These came out in the 
spring of 1775, and after tarrying several weeks at Drennon's Springs, in 
Henry county, settled at Harrod's station. Here Dr. Hart engaged in the 
practice of medicine; and the wife of William Coomes opened a school for 
children. Thus, in all probability, the first practicing physician and the first 
school teacher of our infant Commonwealth were both Roman Catholics. 
A few years later they removed with their families to Bardstown, in the vi- 
cinity of which most of the Catholic emigrants subsequently located them- 
selves. Previously to their removal, however, they were both actively 
employed in the defense of Harrod's station during its memorable siege by 
the Indians in 1776-7. William Coomes was with the party which first dis- 
covered the approach of the savages ; one of his companions was shot dead 
at his side, and he made a narrow escape with his life. 

In the year 1785, twenty-five families of Catholics emigrated to Ken- 
tucky from Maryland, Avith the Haydens and Lancasters, and settled chiefly 
on Pottinger's creek, at a distance of from ten to fifteen miles from Bards- 

1 Webb's Catholicity in Kentucky, p. 24. 

2 Collins, Vol. 11., pp. 486-7; Webb's Catholicity in Kentucky, p. 27. 



THE FIRST CATHOLIC MISSIONARY. 



407 



• town. They were followed, in the spring of the next year, by another colony 
led out by Captain James Rapier, who located himself in the same neigh- 
borhood. In 1787, Thomas Hill and Philip Miles brought out another band 
of Catholic emigrants, and they were followed in 1788, by Robert Abell 
and his friends; and in 1790-91, by Benedict Spalding and Leonard Ham- 
ilton, with their families and connections. The last-named colonists settled 
on the Rolling Fork, a branch of Salt river, in the present county of Ma- 
rion. 

In the spring of the year 1787, there were already about fifty Catholic 
families in Kentucky. They had as yet no Catholic clergyman to adminis- 
ter to their spiritual wants, and they felt the privation most keenly. Upon 
application to the Very Rev. John Carroll, of Baltimore, then the ecclesi- 
astical superior of all the Catholics in the United States, they had the hap- 
piness to receive as their first pastor the Rev. Mr. Whelan, a zealous and 
talented Irish priest, who had served as chaplain in the French navy, which 
had come to our assistance in the struggle for independence. He remained 
with his new charge till the spring of 1790, when he returned to Maryland 
by the way of New Orleans. 

After his departure, the Catholics of Kentucky were again left in a des- 
titute condition for nearly three years ; when they were consoled by the 
appearance among them of the Rev. Stephen Theodore Badin, who was sent 
out as their pastor by Bishop Carroll, 
of Baltimore, in the year 1793. This 
devoted and indefatigable religious 
pioneer still lingered in venerable old 
age above the horizon of life, labored 
with unremitting zeal among the Cath- 
olics of our State for more than thirty 
years; and even after this long term 
of service, though worn down with 
previous exertion, and persuaded to 
travel and take some relaxation for his 
health, he still continued to work at ] ' 
intervals in the vineyard which he 
loved and so long cultivated. When 
he first came to Kentucky, he esti- 
mated the number of Catholic families i 

then here, at three hundred. Rev. Stephen Theodore badin, 

After having remained alone in Kentucky for nearly four years. Rev. 
M. Badin was joined by another zealous Catholic missionary, like himself, 
a native of France — the Rev. M. Fournier, who reached the State in Feb- 
ruary, 1797. Two years later, in February, 1799, another arrived, the Rev. 
M. Salmon, likewise a Frenchman. But these two last-named clergymen 
did not long survive the arduous labors of the mission. M. Salmon, after 




4o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

a serious illness contracted by exposure, was suddenly killed by a fall from 
his horse near Bardstown, on the 9th of November, 1799; and the Rev. M. 
Fournier died soon after, on the Rolling Fork, probably from the rupture 
of a blood-vessel. 

Their places were filled by the Rev. Mr. Thayer, a native of New Eng- 
land, who had once been a Congregational minister in Boston, but had 
become a Catholic, and had been promoted to the ministry in that church. 
He arrived in Kentucky in 1799, having been sent out, like the rest, by 
Bishop Carroll, of Baltimore, the venerable patriarch of the Catholic Church 
in America; and he remained in the State till 1803. After his departure, 
M. Badin was again left aloije for about two years, until the year 1805. 

This year is memorable as marking the arrival of one among the most 
active and efficient of the early missionaries, the Rev. Charles Nerinckx, 
a native of Belgium, who, like many others, had been compelled to leave 
Europe in consequence of the disturbances caused by the French Revolu- 
tion. He labored without cessation, both bodily and mentally, for nearly 
twenty years; and he died on a missionary excursion to Missouri, in 1824. 
He erected in Kentucky no less than ten Catholic churches, in the building 
of which he often worked with his own hands. Two of these were of brick, 
and the rest of hewed logs. 

For many years he had charge of six large congregations, besides a great 
number of minor stations, scattered over the whole extent of the State. 
Like M. Badin, he spent much of his time on horseback, and traveled by 
night as well as by day. On his famous horse, Frititer, he very often trav- 
eled sixty miles in the day; and to save time, he not unfrequently set out 
on his journeys at sunset. He often swam swollen creeks and rivers, even 
in the dead of winter. He frequently slept in the woods ; and on one occa- 
sion, in what is now Grayson county, he was beset by wolves during a whole 
night, when he was saved, under the divine protection, by his presence of 
mind in sitting on his horse and keeping his persecutors at bay by hallooing 
at the top of his voice. 

1 There was also a Catholic settlement, in 1790, in what is now Breckin- 
ridge county, and another on Cox's creek, or Fairfield, in 1795. Both were 
in Nelson county, as it was then composed. Quite a colony of the brother- 
hood came into Kentucky by way of Maysville, then Limestone, about the 
year 1787, their destination being Pottinger's creek; but their route led 
them through that portion of Scott county which is now Woodford; and 
here the beautiful and fertile lands so enchanted them with the luxuriant 
growth from the virgin soil, that they determined to seek no farther an 
abiding place. The fair prospect that stretched out to them offered every 
worldly advantage they could hope for elsewhere. When this settlement 
was visited by Revs. Badin and Barrieres, in 1793, it was reported to con- 
tain about twenty-five families. Many of the descendants of these, yet 



I Webb's Catholicity in Kentucky, p. 



1 



ORGANIZATION OF THE M. E. CHURCH. 409 

'^retaining the faith of their fathers, may be found scattered through Wood- 
ford, Scott, and FrankHn counties, very worthy and respected citizens. 
; '^The Methodist Episcopal Church held three conferences in 1786 in the 
United States — one in North CaroHna, Maryland, and Virginia each. Of 
the five new circuits added to the jurisdiction of these, was that of Ken- 
I'tucky. This is the first mention of Kentucky in conference minutes, six 
■years before she became a State, and in May of this year, James Haw and 
.Benjamin Ogden were appointed as the first regular itinerant preachers sent 
jito this newly-created field of labor. Rev. Haw spent five years in minis- 
Lterial labor here, three years as superintendent of this district. In 1789, he 
was in charge of the Lexington district, and the next year was transferred 
ito the Cumberland circuit in Tennessee. Before the termination of this 
((year, he was reported as among nine ministers " who were under a location 
^through weakness of body or family concerns." Settling in Sumner county, 
Klennessee, in 1795, he became dissatisfied and joined the O'Kelly branch 
[:of Methodism, which had separated from the parent church on the sub- 
ject of episcopacy and the elective franchise. 

p 2 jn 1800, he attached himself to the Presbyterian Church, and continued 
l^to preach for years after. Ogden was admitted on trial at the conference 
in 1786 and sent to Kentucky as a traveling preacher, and, the next year, 
Icwas the first minister to bear the message of the Gospel to Middle Tennes- 
see, on the Cumberland circuit. He labored on, through many vicissitudes, 
^for almost fifty years in the work he had chosen, and died in 1834, near 
[jPrinceton, Kentucky, uttering to the last his "wish to die, having the whole 
iarmor on, contending like a good soldier for the prize." 
' But these were not the first ministers of that church who ventured to the 
wilderness. Others had voluntarily embarked their fortunes upon the rest- 
cless tide, mainly to better their worldly condition. ^ In 1784, a local preacher 
by the name of Tucker, while on his way, with his kindred and companions, 
(descending the Ohio to Kentucky in a boat, was attacked by Indians. 
Mortally wounded, after, by his bravery and presence of mind, he had 
I. rescued the boat and his comrades, among whom were the women and chil- 
rdren, he fell on his knees and died, shouting praises to his God. But as 
nearly as 1783, Rev. Francis Clark, accompanied by John Durham, a class 
lleader, and others of his neighbors, with their families, left Virginia and 
I'settled in Mercer county. He organized the first class in the far West, 
It about six miles from the site of Danville, and appointed Durham its leader. 
Clark stands pre-eminent as the founder of Methodism in Kentucky. 

^"Methodist families had also settled in other portions of the district. 

. Among the first was that of Thomas Stevenson, who, with his wife, among 

the first converts to Methodism on the American continent, had emigrated 

1 Bangs' History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Vol. I., p. 221. 

2 Collins, Vol. I., p. 445. 

3 Short Sketches of the Work of God in the West. 

4 Collins, Vol. I., pp. 445-6. 



41 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

from Maryland and settled in Mason county, two and a half miles south- 
west of Washington. In their house, a church was organized in 1786. 

" It was at no small cost the Gospel of Christ was preached to the early 
settlers. The lives of the preachers were in constant danger from the In- 
dians. Sometimes they were guarded from one fort to another, but oftener 
plodded their perilous way alone. 

"The conference minutes of 1787 show a membership in Kentucky of 
ninety whites, colored none. In 1787, James Haw was returned to Ken- 
tucky, with Thomas Williamson and Wilson Lee as his colleagues. At the 
close of this year, the membership was four hundred and twenty white and 
sixty colored. In 1788, two circuits, called Lexington and Danville, were 
formed from or in place of Kentucky circuit. Francis Poythress and James 
Haw were sent as elders, and Thomas Williamson, Peter Massie, and Ben- 
jamin Snelling to Lexington, and William Lee to Danville circuit. The 
membership at the close of this year had increased to eight hundred and 
twelve white and fifty-one colored. In 1789, Mr. Poythress was the presid- 
ing elder, while James Haw, Wilson Lee, and Stephen Brooks were assigned 
to the Lexington, and Barnabas McHenry and Peter Massie to the Dan- 
ville circuit. 

" During this year, the labors of the preachers were attended with ex- 
traordinary success. The experience of Poythress and Haw, the sound 
and logical preaching of McHenry, the persuasive eloquence of Wilson Lee 
and of Brooks, with the zeal, the pathos, and the tears of Peter Massie, 
together with the earnestness of James O'CuU, a local preacher of remark- 
able talents, who had just emigrated from Pennsylvania, invested Methodisn> 
with a commanding influence. At the close of the year, ten hundred and 
thirty-nine white and fifty-one colored members were reported — a net in- 
crease of two hundred and twenty seven. 

"In the spring of 1790, Bishop Asbury visited Kentucky, where for the 
first time an annual conference was held. He was accompanied by Richard 
Whatcoat, afterward elected bishop, and also by Hope Hull and John Lea- 
well, men well known in those days as ardent, zealous, and useful preachers. 
The conference was held, commencing on the r5th of May, at Masterson's 
station, five miles north-west of Lexington, where the first Methodist church 
in Kentucky, a plain log structure, was erected. 

"A volunteer company. Rev, Peter Massie, John Clark, and eight others, 
guarded the bishop from Virginia. On the seventh day of the journey they 
reached Richmond, and on the tenth, Lexington. Bishop Asbury, alluding 
to this journey, says : ' I was strangely outdone for want of sleep. Our 
way is over mountains, steep hills, deep rivers, and muddy creeks, a thick 
growth of reeds for miles together, and no inhabitants but wild beasts and 
savage men. I slept about an hour the first night, and about two the last. 
We ate no regular meals, our bread grew short, and I was much spent.' On 
his way, he 'saw the graves of the slain, twenty-four in one camp,' who 



THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 41I 

lad a few 'nights previous been murdered by the Indians. Thus the fresh 
Taves of the dead signaled the perils that awaited them. 

"The conference was composed of six members, namely, Francis Poy- 
hress, James Haw, Wilson Lee, Stephen Brooks. Barnabas McHenry, and 
[':'eter Massie. Three elders were ordained, preaching had noon and night, 
' ouls were converted, and the fallen restored. A plan was fixed for a school, 
ii:alled Bethel, and three hundred pounds in land and money subscribed 
L'oward its establishment. 

"The conference lasted but two days. On Monday, the 17th, Bishop 
\sbury preached, ten miles from Lexington, to a large number of people, 
vith great power. ' The house was crowded day and night, and often the 
'ioor was covered with the slain of the Lord, and the house and the woods 
I'-esounded with the shouts of the converted.' Thus, the visit of the bishop, 
he first bishop of any denomination ever in Kentucky, was greatly blessed 
! ind a fresh impulse given to the infant church in Kentucky. Remarkable 
t^is was his career, born in England, converted when quite a youth, holding 
ifDublic meetings at seventeen, preaching before he was eighteen, appointed 
'3y Mr. Wesley to America at the age of twenty-six, and at the Christmas con- 
ference in Baltimore, in 1784, unanimously elected bishop, there was a 
f singular fitness in his being the pioneer bishop of the pioneer State, sent to 
'organize the pioneer conference. 

i"Two additional circuits in Kentucky, the Limestone and Madison, 
were added this year, and nine preachers, instead of six, appointed, among 
-them, for the first time, Henry Birchett, David Haggard, Samuel Tucker, 
|-^and Joseph Lillard. At the close of this year were reported fourteen hun- 
■ dred and fifty-nine white and ninety-four colored members, a net increase of 
'four hundred and sixty-three. At the conference of rSoo, there were five 
circuits in Kentucky, to which six preachers were appointed. The mem- 
'bership then reported was seventeen hundred and forty-one.'' 

2 The Presbyterian Church well concedes that Rev. David Rice may 
justly claim precedence over all others, as its pioneer founder and promoter 
'in Kentucky. In 1783, he was among the emigrants to Kentucky. His 
?'first active work was to gather into congregational order the scattered broth- 
'' erhood of that church, at Danville, Cane Run, and the Forks of Dick's 
river. Besides his regular duties as a minister of the Gospel, and the organ- 
" ization of a number of congregations, he was zealously engaged in advanc- 
ing the cause of education. The estimation in which he was held by the 
public may be inferred from his election as a member of the convention 
which met in Danville in 1792, to which we have previously referred. In 
'■' the framing of the first Constitution of Kentucky, he then exerted himself 
to effect the abolition of slavery. Father Rice, as he was familiarly called, 
was a man of plain and practical talents, rather than of command or display. 
His judgment was sound, his disposition conservative, and his deportment 

I Collins, Vol. I., p. 446. 2 Collins, Vol. I., p. 457 



412 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

exemplary; just such a combination of traits in a man of purpose and dili- 
gence, to accomplish large and enduring results in a lifetime. He is said to 
have spent much time in prayer for self-devotion and discipline. His person 
was slender, but tall and active; and even at the age of seventy, he was 
wonderfully alert. He died in Green county, in June, 1816, aged eighty- 
three, exclaiming with expiring breath: " O, when shall I be free from sin 
and sorrow? " 

Mr. Rice was followed by Rev. Adam Rankin, who gathered together 
the Church at Lexington, and by Rev. James Crawford, who settled at Wal- 
nut Hill, in 1784. In 1786, Revs. Thomas Craighead and Andrew McClure 
were added to the number. These ministers were shortly after organized 
into a Presbytery, under the name of the Presbytery of Transylvania, a 
classical and euphonious epithet which had already found usage in other rela- 
tions. All these ministers were from Virginia, except Mr. Craighead, who 
came from North Carolina. Rev. Terah Templin received ordination in 
1785, and located in Washington county, where he organized several con- 
gregations, and faithfully evangelized. Later on, he organized and supplied 
destitute congregations in Livingston county. Churches were organized at 
Salem and Paris by Rev. Andrew McClure. Craighead assumed charge of 
Shiloh congregation, in Sumner county, Tennessee, shortly after arriving in 
Kentucky. Here he Avas suspected of preaching the doctrine of Pelagian- 
ism, and became unpopular. In 1805, a commission was appointed by the 
Synod of Kentucky, having jurisdiction, which was directed to investigate 
the question of his soundness. The result was the suspension of Mr. Craig- 
head from the ministry. Though he made efforts to be restored, this was 
not done until the year 1S24. He shortly after died. Mr. Craighead was 
a man of commanding talents, and fervid, impressive eloquence. The 
Hon. John Breckinridge said of him, that his discourses made a more last- 
ing impression upon his mind than those of any other man he had ever 
heard. 

Among his brotherhood. Rev. John Poage Campbell stood pre-eminent 
for brilliancy and learning, of the missionaries of the earlier age of the 
Church. He was a graduate of the Hampden Sydney College, and was 
licensed to preach in 1792. He assumed charge of the churches at Flem- 
ingsburg and Smyrna in 1795, and afterward was in charge successively, of 
the churches at Danville, Versailles, Lexington, and other points. An ap- 
preciative writer says of him, that he was possessed of an acute and discrim- 
inating mind, was an accurate and well-read theologian, an able polemic, 
and decidedly the most popular, talented, and influential minister of his day. 
A number of his published writings, yet in print, bear testimony to his rare 
attainments. 

In 1793, Rev. James Blythe was ordained pastor of Pisgah and Clear 
Creek Churches, and to these he ministered for forty years. He ranked 
with the noted and able ministers of the church, and devoted his talents alike 



THE PRESBYTERY OF TRANSYLVANIA. 415 

D the interests of education as well as the church. He took a prominent 
Lart in the establishment of Kentucky Academy; and when that institution 
vas merged into the University of Transylvania, he was appointed to a 
Tofessorship in the same, and subsequently fulfilled the duties of acting 
president for over twelve years. 

J A man of historic eminence also was the Rev. Archibald Cameron. He 
/as the son of Scotch Presbyterian parentage, and the family moved to 
eCentucky in 1781, and settled on a farm at the foot of "Cameron's Knob," 
bout six miles from Bardstown. He studied theology under Rev. David 
lice, and was licensed to preach in 1795. His labors were largely confined 
■0 Nelson, Jefferson, and Shelby counties, and he was mainly instrumental 
a building up the churches at Shelbyville, Mulberry, Six-mile, Shiloh, Oli- 
■ et, and other points in range. Mr. Cameron's mind was cast in the finest 
nold, and cultivated to the highest degree. He was a man of great shrewd- 
ness, and gifted with keen powers of satire. As a pastor, he was highly 
esteemed and much beloved by the people of his charge; as a friend, he 

; vas frank, generous, and confiding; as a divme, he ranked in the first class, 

'' .nd was regarded by all who knew him as the ablest man in the Synod, 
i^e was the author of many published writings of repute, and extensively 

L ead. 

r, As early as 1786, the Presbytery of Transylvania met in the court-house 
it Danville. There were at this time twelve congregations in a fair state of 

organization. There were present five ministers, Revs. Rice, Rankin, Mc- 

(Tlure, Crawford, and Templin. There were also present five ruling elders, 
Viessrs. Richard Steele, David Gray, John Borel, Joseph Read, and Jeremiah 

, Frame. 

h From the journal of Richard Henderson, of date Sunday, May 28, ///J, 

Ijiveread: "Divine service, for the first time in Kentucky, was performed 

oy the Rev. John Lythe, of the Church of England." On Saturday, May 
(3th, previous, his diary says, alluding to the grand old elm tree at Boones- 

loorough: "This divine tree, or rather one of the many proofs of the exist- 
ence from all eternity of its divine Author, is to be our church and council 
:hamber. Having many things on our hands, we have not had time to 

i?rect seats and a pulpit, but hope, by Sunday, sevennight, to perform 

,iivine service in a public manner, and that to a set of scoundrels, who 
scarcely believe in God or fear a devil, if we are to judge from the looks, 

^ivords, or actions of most of them." 

p This was not certainly an auspicious and persuasive beginning for one 
accustomed to the aesthetic forms and services of the Church of England, 
ind we learn that Mr. Lythe soon after left Kentucky. Of the Episcopal 
element in the State previous to 1800, Marshall says: "There were in the 

• :ountry, and chiefly from Virginia, many Episcopalians, but these had 
formed no church, there being no parson or minister to take charge of such. 
This very relaxed state of that society may have been occasioned by the war 



414 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of the Revolution, which cut off the source of clerical supply derived ther 
mainly from Great Britain. There remained, even in Virginia, a real de 
ficiency of preachers. Education is, with this fraternity, a necessary quali 
fication for administering the affairs of both Church and State. 

1 A church was founded in Lexington as early as 1794, but there was nc 
organized parish until 1809. Thus it may be said that the Episcopal Churcl 
did not begin its organized work, and become a factor, as such, in the work 
of evangelizing Kentucky, in the earlier pioneer days, or until after the 
year 1800. The same author attests that, not long after the war for inde 
pendence, a flood of revolutionary atheism came in, and there was nc 
adequate barrier to oppose it. Skepticism, or a contemptuous indifference 
to religion, prevailed to a deplorable extent among the educated classes. 

This description applies with even more emphasis to Kentucky, as the 
frontier, than to the older portions of Virginia. 

2 The following extract from a historic article in the Courier-Journal, of 
August 2, 1883, gives the origin of the churches of four of the leading 
denominations in Louisville : 

"Many of the early preachers of Kentucky, and among the number 
John Whitaker, Tarah Thompson, Elijah Craig, William Hickman, Samuel 
Shannon, John Morris, Benjamin Lynn, Nelson Lee, William Taylor, Joshua 
Carman, and Henry Burrhett, visited Louisville, and no doubt preached at 
the forts and court-house, but it was some years before there was a church 
here. In a view of Louisville taken by Captain Gilbert Imlay, and pub- 
lished in the topographical description of North America, in 1792, there is 
a building on the north-west corner of Main and Twelfth streets, presenting 
the unmistakable appearance of a church. Tradition says there was a church 
on lot No. 49, originally owned by Jacob Myers, close to the old Twelfth- 
street fort, which accords with the location of such a structure in the picture 
of Imlay. And the late Rev. James Craik, in his sketch of Christ church, 
in this city, states that Rev. Mr. Kavanaugh, an Episcopal minister, came to 
the Beargrass settlement, in Jefferson county, with the Hites, in 1784. Mr. 
Craik fixes the date of his coming to Kentucky too early; but the min- 
ister meant by him was the Rev. Williams Kavanaugh, father of the late 
bishop of the Methodist Church. Whether he was rector of the church on 
the corner of Main and Twelfth as early as 1792, or ever, we know not; 
but we do know that he was rector of an Episcopal church in the city of 
Louisville as early as 1803, and this was eight years before any other denom- 
ination of Christians claims to have had a church in Louisville. In those 
early times it was the custom in chancery suits, when personal process could 
not be served upon non-residents, to issue what was called a warning order, 
which, besides being posted at the courthouse door, and published in a 
newspaper, was read at church immediately after divine service. Such an 

1 Bishop Smith, in Collins' History, Vol. I., p. 438. 

2 By Col. R. T. Durrett. 



THE FIRST CHURCHES IN LOUISVILLE. 415 

Drder was entered by our old chancery court in the cases of Corneal against 

l,a Cassagne, and Hite against Marsh, at the September term, 1803, and 

- directed by the court to be posted at the court-house door, published in the 

I the Farmers^ Library for eight weeks, and ' read at the Rev. Williams Kava- 

[naugh's meeting-house, in Louisville, on some Sunday immediately after 

Idivine service.' We now have before us a copy of the Farmers' Library, 

in which this order of the court appears; and we take it for granted that 

,,Rev. Williams Kavanaugh read it to his congregation in Louisville, and that 

1 he had a church there at the time, as stated by the order of the court, in 

which to read it. He was originally of the Methodist denomination, but 

I became an Episcopalian in early life, and continued in that faith. In 1806, 

Lhe moved to the town of Henderson, in Kentucky, where he died the same 

year, in charge of the Episcopal Church there. 

"In 181 1, the Rev. Stephen Theodore Badin erected a Catholic Church 
.near the north-west corner of Tenth and Main streets, which was the sec- 
jrOnd church in our city. It was a framed house, upon the Gothic style of 
j architecture, and quite an improvement upon the log-house in which Rev. 
Ij Williams Kavanaugh had ofificiated. The ground between this church and 
I- Eleventh street was used as a graveyard ; and years afterward, when Elev- 
ucnth street was cut through to the river, and when the warehouse ui)on the 
j, corner of Main and Eleventh had its foundation dug, the coffins, the bones, 
ijthe cerements, and even the flesh of some buried there were shockingly 
-exposed to public view. One grave was opened whose occupant, once a 
^ beautiful young woman, had a history full of that sorrow which strikes to 
i the depths of the heart, but we have not space to tell it now. 
r "In 1812, John and James Bate gave to the Methodist Church the south 
ij'half of half acre lot No. 131, on the north side of Market street, between 
[J Seventh and Eighth. Here a brick house was erected, in which Bishop 
1^ Asbury, traveling through the country in 1812, preached on Wednesday, 
i, October 22d, and about which he made the following note in his journal : ' I 
preached in Louisville at 1 1 o'clock in our neat brick house, thirty-four by 
- thirty-eight feet. I had a sickly, serious congregation. This is a growing 
town and a handsome place, but the falls or ponds make it unhealthy. W^e 
, lodged at Farquar's.' 

"The fourth church in the city was built by the Presbyterians, on the 

, west side of Fourth street, between Market and Jefferson, in 1816. It was 

^ famous for its sweet-toned bell, which not only summoned to serious worship, 

but began the fashion of ringing at 10 o'clock at night, which has since been 

one of the peculiarities of our city. This church was burned down in 1836, 

, and nothing about it was more universally regretted than the loss of the 

bell. 

"In 1825, Christ church, on the east side of Second, between Green and 
Walnut streets, was built, on a lot given by Peter B. Ormsby. Mr. Ormsby 
was then the owner of a five-acre lot where the church was built, and it was 



4l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

his purpose to give to the church ample ground. But before the deed was 
made his ilnancial affairs changed, and he could only give the ground cov- 
ered by the walls. This venerable building was the second Episcopal Church 
in our city, and though altered and improved to keep pace with the demands 
of modern taste, it is yet the pioneer church in Louisville." 

It would be the gravest error to suppose that, taken as a whole, the 
pioneer people of Kentucky were below an average of the most civilized 
and enlightened people of any State or nation of their day. It is true that 
the country, like all new and distant countries receiving their pioneer popu- 
lation, was a refuge for the time, as Texas, California, and Mexico since, 
for some outlaws and desperadoes, whose aim was more to evade the admin- 
istration of justice than to find homes and fortunes by the venture. Yet 
even these were not ignorant or inexperienced men usually. 

^ It requjijres both intelligence and enterprise to produce voluntary change 
of country, or even of habitation ; and what may be assumed with confidence 
is, that there were to be found in this population as much of talent and intel- 
ligence as fall to the lot of any equal number of people promiscuously taken 
either in Europe or America. This stock of intellect was not, however, of 
native growth, for there had not been time to mature that. We need only 
look to the fact of emigration, as the source of populating the country with 
adults, to explain the superior degree of information obvious among the 
people at the time. Quite a number among the ministers, as well as of the 
men of other learned professions, of public officials, and of private life, had 
finished their education in the best institutions of the East. Hence, we find 
among the clergy, at so early a day, men of great pulpit power, eloquence, 
and learning. 

The ministers partook somewhat of the temperament of the people 
around them, and were but little less combative and aggressive with their 
creeds and doctrines than were the common people with their rifles and 
implements of war. The differences between Romanist and Protestant 
would be sometimes brought to issue in public debate, while Baptists, Pres- 
byterians, and Methodists wrangled before deeply interested audiences, or 
through their publications at times, among themselves, over the possibility 
or impossibility of reconciling God's foreknowledge with man's free agency, 
over election and reprobation, eternal decrees, and all those issues that 
vexed the souls of Calvin and Arminius so many years before. The doc- 
trines of the mode of baptism, and of infant church membership also, came 
in for a share in these ecclesiastical polemics, as they have done ever since. 
The orthodoxy of some of the evangelical churches was much disturbed and 
perplexed by the very early intrusion of Unitarian doctrines; and from this 
cause, the old grounds of controversy between Arius and Athanasius were 
again fought over in the wilderness of the Occident, as they had been, cen- 
turies before, in the temples of learning and refinement in the Orient. 

I Marshall, Vol. I , p. 442. 



EVENTS OF THE PERIOD FROM 1800 TO 1815, 



417 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

(1800-12.) 



,: Presidential contest of 1800. 

b Kentuckians gratitied at the election of 

j Jefferson. 

Issues of the campaign. 

Heated contest. 

Wise administration hitherto. 
i' Judge McClung, of the Kentucky Fed- 
ifjral circuit, legislated out of office by the 
if jeneral law. 

, First insurance and banking in Ken- 
ucky. 

Changes of courts. 

Intendant Morales, of New Orleans, 
•oroclaims the privileges of Mississippi trade 
I :anceled. 

. Threatening resentment. 
i[ Spain cedes Louisiana to France in se- 
:;ret treaty. 
! Protest of United States Government. 

Monroe minister to France, with full 
Dowers to purchase or resist. 
- Consul Napoleon offers to sell to United 
.'states for sixteen million dollars. 
; Monroe accepts. 

I Louisiana transferred to the United 
states. 

Great religious revivals in Kentucky. 

Phenomenal exercises. 
\ Sweep the country. 

Greenup elected governor, 
r Jefferson re-elected. 

' John Breckinridge attorney-general of 
he United States. 

First pension in Kentucky. 

Burr's conspiracy. 

Blannerhassett's island headquarters. 

Kentucky the theater. 

Burr's plans. 
, His associates. 

Arraigned by Colonel Daveiss. 
•^ Trial and acquittal. 
i Pledges to Clay. 



His abortive efforts. 

Failure. 

Reflections. 

Old conspiracies unearthed by legisla- 
tive investigation. 

Sebastian received two thousand dollars 
a year from Spain. 

Compelled to resign from the Appellate 
bench. 

Nicholas and Innes involved. 

New testimonies of recent date from the 
archives of Spain, at Madrid, in regard to 
Spanish intrigues in Kentucky. 

Copies filed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

All the facts unearthed. 

Literesting revelations. 

Intendant Miro's letter to Valdes, secre- 
tary for the Indies, at Madrid. 

Wilkinson's treasonable pledges. 

His letters in cipher to the intendant. 

Involves the names of his Kentucky 
friends. 

His agent, Dunn. 

Letter to Miro. 

What Kentucky will do. 

All leading men favor secession except 
Colonel Marshall and Muter. 

Act of Congress disappoints. 

Plans next. 

Wants a place of refuge in Louisiana, in 
case of failure. 

English agent Connelly. 

Disposal of him. 

Wilkinson writes Miro that money is 
the prime mover. 

He has advanced five thousand dollars. 

Says "two thousand five hundred dol- 
lars will attract Marshall and Muter on 
our side." 

Congressman Brown for secession. 

Intrigue in constitutional convention. 

Same intrigues in Tennessee. 



27 



4iS 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Seceders establish the " State of Frank- 
land " there. 

Sevier governor. 

His arrest and trial. 

Daring rescue by his friends from the 
court-room. 

Right of navigation and trade restored. 

Quiets discontent. 

Disconcerts plans. 

Agency and intrigue renewed through 
Power. 

Stipulates for Spain to furnish one hun- 
dred thousand dollars. 

Ten thousand dollars sent to Wilkinson. 

His hesitation. 

Now major-general of the United States 
army. 

Wilkinson tried and acquitted. 

Ben Hardin on Sebastian. 

Nicholas" and Innes' defense. 

Brown's exoneration. 

Venerable Judge Muter resigns. 

Henry Clay's birth and early life. 



Genius and character. 

Locates at Lexington, in 1798, at the 
age of twenty-one years. 

Rapid advancement to success. 

First official promotions. 

Opening political career. 

His leadership and speeches. 

Madison president. 

General Charles Scott governor. 

His message. 

Strained relations with England. 

Bank of Kentucky chartered. 

Census of 1810. 

Battle of Tippecanoe. 

Colonels Abraham Owen and Joseph H. 
Daveiss killed. 

Biographic sketches. 

General William Russell. 

Great earthquake at New Madrid and 
Fulton county, in iSli. 

Legislative grants. 

Shelby re-elected governor. 

His message. 



The notable event of 1800, in which the people of Kentucky interested 
themselves with intense zeal, was the election of a president of the United 
States to succeed Mr. Adams. The party lines were strictly drawn over the 
old issues of the Federal and Democratic parties. The agitations growing 
out of the alien and sedition laws and the resolutions upon States' rights, by 
Kentucky and Virginia, had inflamed party sentiment to an extent unprece- 
dented in any previous national political campaign. Mr. Adams and Mr. 
Jefferson were the champions and leaders of the respective divisions. In 
Kentucky, the mass of the people, with great unanimity, were not in sym- 
pathy with the administration of President Adams, and, on the other hand, 
Mr. Jefferson with them was a favorite. He was of Virginia, from whence 
had emigrated the majority of the political leaders of the State. He had 
been governor of the Old Dominion when Kentucky was a part of it, and 
had always shown a friendly interest to the West. The respective merits of 
France and England were yet, in large measure, engaging the attention 
of the men of either party, to the interference of their duties and affections 
to their own country — foreign partialities which appear to us too puerile for 
the dignity of American citizenship, and which are not likely again to be re- 
vived in the politics of this country. 

^The Federal Congressmen, in caucus, presented the names of John 
Adams and Charles C. Pinckney for president and vice-president, and the 
Democrats, or Republicans, those of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. As 



I Statesman's Manual. 



THE FEDERAL PARTY DEFEATED. 419 

most of the electors were to be chosen by the State Legislatures, the contest 
, began mainly in these bodies at their respective capitals. One of the earliest 
I and most important was that in New York, in May of this year. The result 
! was favorable to Jefferson and Burr, thus reversing the vote that had been 
given to Adams and Pinckney four years before. President Adams abruptly 
dismissed from his cabinet Mr. Pinckney, secretary of state, and Mr. Mc- 
Henry, secretary of war, in consequence of alleged or supposed party 
I sympathy, an event that had an effect to weaken his party in the contest, it 
was thought. Alexander Hamilton, hitherto a powerful Federal leader, 
came out in a letter censuring the public character and conduct of Mr. 
Adams, which further broke the party prestige and demoralized its self- 
: assurance. The aim of Hamilton appeared to be to defeat both Adams and 
i'^ Jefferson and to elect Mr. Pinckney, believing that the vote of South Caro- 
lina would be a balance of power, and would be cast for Jefferson and 
j Pinckney. When it became known that this State had voted for Jefferson 
' and Burr, the defeat of the Federal ticket was settled. The pluralities of 
seventy-three each made a tie between Jefferson and Burr, thus throwing 
the election into Congress. The Federalists now concentrated their entire 
vote on Burr, in the hope of Jefferson's defeat. Eight States, with fifty-one 
votes, all Republican, voted for Jefferson, and six States, with fifty-three 
votes, for Burr, with two States divided. The same result continued through 
'thirty-five ballots. On the thirty-sixth ballot, a number of members mani- 
' fested their withdrawal of hostility to Mr. Jefferson's election by putting in 
blank votes, when, on announcement, it was shown that ten States had voted 
'■ for Jefferson, and four States — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, 
' and Rhode Island — for Burr. The former was thereupon elected president 
land the latter vice-president for four years. Thus, the tidal wave of political 
' sentiment and the powerful factors of political mutation, after years of agi- 
tation and contest, fixedly established the Democratic party in administrative 
'• control of the Government, and for the succeeding twenty-four years. 
[ The disinterested student of history can not but be thoughtfully impressed 
rthat the administration of the government for the first twelve years, under 
-Washington and Adams, was fortunate for its peace, prosperity, and stabil- 
[ ity. The policy of Washington was eminently prudent, cautious, and con- 
'^ servative. Mr. Adams endeavored to continue in the same paths of safety 
;, and reserve. That foreign wars from foreign entanglements without, and 
! anarchy from impatient and imprudent factionism at home, were avoided, 
deserve the gratitude of the generation of to day, to whom the heritage of 
republican liberty and a grand nationality, in their purest integrity, are 
I preserved and perpetuated. An author of note says of this experimental 
era of national administration : i " By the prudent and pacific, yet firm and 
decided, measures of the Federal Government for these twelve years, the 
character of the United States had become highly respectable among the 

I Bradford's History of the Federal Government. 



420 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

greatest statesmen of Europe. Its policy exhibited a happy union of energy 
and magnanimity, and it was respected aHke for its wisdom and power. 
The nation was placed in a commanding attitude of defense, while Hberty, 
peace, and improvement were everywhere witnessed within its jurisdiction." 

1 The opportune time, perhaps, had come for a change. The enactment 
of the alien and sedition laws, and other sectional and prescriptive meas- 
ures, shows that the sentiment and policy of the party, too successfully in 
power, however patriotic, were drifting from the moorings of personal lib- 
erty toward the license of unwarranted assumption. Providence decreed 
a change, and in fit time. Nowhere in the Union was the elevation of Mr. 
Jefferson hailed with more enthusiastic joy than by the people of Ken- 
tucky. 

The first measure of President Jefferson's administration that immediately 
affected Kentucky was the repeal of the circuit court system of the United 
States, and of the internal revenue taxes. This measure of judiciary repeal 
was canvassed with great ability and zeal, as it trenched on the tenure of judi- 
cial office, practically. The construction provided for the repeal of an office 
by a bare majority, while a vote of two-thirds was required to remove the 
occupant. It was an indirect removal from office by the vote of a major- 
ity. Judge McClung, of the Kentucky circuit, with his judicial brethren, 
was legislated out of office by the operation of the measure. The vacancies 
thus created were at once filled. The repeal of the internal taxes relieved 
the interior agricultural country, but poorly able to command specie, from 
the irritating offices of the excisemen. At the same time, by reducing the 
number of office-holders, it diminished the patronage of the administration, 
which deserves a tribute of praise for its disinterestedness. The measures 
were popular in their effect with the people throughout the country. 

2 The first introduction of the methods of banking into Kentucky had its 
beginning about this time. An application was made to the Legislature to 
incorporate an insurance company, for the purpose of insuring produce in 
transit to market. In the charter was surreptitiously inserted a clause "to 
take and give bills, bonds, and obligations, in the course of their business ; 
also, to receive and pass them by assignment; and such of the notes as are 
payable to bearer shall be negotiable and assignable by delivery." Under 
this pregnant clause, the bills issued by the company were made payable to 
bearer, and became equivalent to bank bills. This intrusive and insidious 
insurance and banking measure was given artificial life until 1818, during 
which time the corporate monstrosity, without sufficient guards, exerted 
a monopoly of its vested powers, without any equivalent to the State for a 
surrender of its legislative discretion. The fate of the institution may be 
told in few words; it began in deceptive fraud, and ended in disastrous 
bankruptcy. The experience with this paper currency was no better than 
with continental money. 

I Butler, p. 298-9. 2 Butler, p. 299. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 42 1 

At this session, a third radical change was made in the ordinary courts 
lof the State. The district and general courts were abolished,. and circuit 
ifcourts for each county were substituted. The judges of the former, like the 
Hquarter session justices and the judges of the court of Oyer and Terminer, 
f(Of a former period, followed the fate of the courts. To each of the cir- 
|;cuit judges Avere added two assistants, not learned in the law. This latter 
itprovision was found so habitually to impede the progress of business, by 
jiproducing conflicts of opinion with the presiding judge, in overruling or 
[rearguing his decisions, that the assistants were, after a brief trial, abolished, 
I'and without any general regrets. 

1 The trade by the Mississippi river had become the life of Kentucky 

industry and enterprise, and the commercial advantages from such a source 

fewere felt everywhere. It was, therefore, quite a shock to the people when, 

lin the year 1802, it came to an abrupt termination by the limitation of treaty 

; privileges, and without any provision for relief. Although the stipulations 

:by the treaty of 1795 promised a continuance by the former, or other satis- 

1: factory arrangement for the deposit of merchandise at New Orleans, the 

rj Spanish Intendant, Morales, by proclamation, declared the privileges to 

; cease. This act of broken faith produced the highest indignation, not only 

;:in Kentucky, but throughout the United States. The excitement was re- 

. doubled when the public heard of the cession of Louisiana by Spain to 

■France, by the secret treaty of Ildefonso, in October, 1800. An effort 

: was made in the Senate, on the meeting of Congress, in 1802, to authorize 

![ the president to take immediate possession of the island of New Orleans and 

the adjacent territory, but it failed. The executive then instantly adopted 

t measures which led to the acquisition of the whole of that vast domain west 

of the Mississippi river, known then as Louisiana; and Congress, acting in 

sympathy, voted two millions of dollars to promote the negotiation. Mr. 

Monroe was appointed minister to France, with full instructions. Governor 

Garrard was kept fully advised by President Jefferson, in a matter of such 

' profound interest to Kentucky, pending these events. 

When Minister Monroe reached Paris, he found Napoleon, then First 

. Consul of France, anticipating the loss of Louisiana by the preponderance 

i; of the English navy, disposed to sell the magnificent province to the United 

States. His utterance was: "I renounce it with the greatest regret. To 

attempt obstinately to retain it, would be folly." The negotiations termi- 

' nated in an agreement, on the 30th of April, 1803, for a sale and cession, 

for the sum of sixteen millions of dollars. Thus was the area of the United 

States enlarged to two million square miles, and extended from sea to sea. 

■ On the 20th of December following. Governor Claiborne, of Mississippi 

Territory, and General Wilkinson, of the regular army, received formal 

' possession of the purchased province from the French commissioner, M. 

Loussat. New and inestimable advantages thus opened up to Kentucky, 

I Butler, pp. 303-305. 



42 2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

in common with the whole country. Under the auspicious smiles of this 
golden commerce, aided by the magic powers of steam as a motor, under 
the inventive powers of Fulton, West, and Fitch, the wilderness has been 
made to blossom as a garden ; while a vast expanse of region and countless 
millions of people have been subjected to the benignant sway of religion, 
liberty, and enlightenment, with an indigenous and original outgrowth im- 
possible in the old world. 

With the introductory year of the nineteenth century came a great wave 
of religious awakening, attended with very marked and extraordinary phe- 
nomena. Kentucky seemed to be the center of agitation and excitement, 
though it extended its circumference to Tennessee and other States. Com- 
mencing in 1799, in Logan county, under the ministry of two brothers, 
John McGee, of the Methodist church, and William McGee, of the Presby- 
terian, The Great Revival, as it was called, spread over the State, chiefly 
manifesting its power in Fayette, Mercer, Nelson, Shelby, Montgomery, 
Madison, Harrison, Marion, and Logan counties. Among the preachers 
most prominent in it, besides the McGees, were William McKendree, Barton 
W. Stone, James McGready, and others. So absorbing was this religious 
fervor, and so pervading, that all else was subordinated to this one interest. 
Thousands attended the open meetings, and for ten, twenty, and thirty miles 
around. Along with the professors of religion, went the unsaved sinners, 
the scoffers and unbelievers, thronging the highways and camping-grounds, 
alike. The excitement seemed universally infectious. In the midst of re- 
ligious services and vehement exhortation, the exercises of falling prostrate, 
jerking with nervous motions, and involuntary dancing, would begin with a 
few, and spread to others, until they would finally embrace the audience of 
saints and sinners, alike. The wildest scenes of commotion were witnessed, 
beyond the power of analysis to explain, or the pen to adequately portray. 
At the great " Cane Ridge Meeting," from twenty to thirty thousand people 
were in camp for seven days. They came on foot and horseback, and in 
twelve hundred vehicles, a mighty host. Methodists, Baptists, and others, 
for the first time in Kentucky, heartily united in the godly work. A histo- 
rian aptly says of this revival : ^ "Thousands were thrown into the convulsive 
state that was then believed to be a mark of the divine power. Although 
such exhibitions are not pleasant to those w'ho take more sober views of re- 
ligion, there is no doubt that these violent revivals of the religious impulse, 
which for years marked the history of Kentucky, were very important ele- 
ments in determining the quality of the people. At one time or another, 
perhaps one-half the population was brought under the influence of an en- 
thusiasm that, for the while, took them away from material things. To a 
large part of the people who came under this strong influence of religious 
fervor, the result was momentary ; but a larger part yet, received from it 
effects that lasted all their lives." 



I Shaler, Kentucky Commonwealth. 



I 



SKETCH OF HON. JOHN BRECKINRIDGE. 423 

These phenomenal exercises were not peculiar to the age or country, nor 
!' to the ministerial work of that day. ^ The same effects were introduced 
('into Scotland, when Mr. Whitefield was invited by the seceders, through the 
(Erskines. Great excitement and extraordinary manifestations of swooning, 
'convulsions, and cataleptic seizures attended his labors near Glasgow, where 
Pat one time the assemblage was estimated to consist of thirty thousand per- 
1 sons. Similar cases had previously occurred under Mr. Wesley's preaching, 
''and have since been noted, as in the revivals under the preachings of Jona- 
■ than Edwards, in New England. 

' In 1804, Christopher Greenup was elected governor, and John Caldwell, 

lieutenant-governor, of Kentucky. By the governor's appointment, John 

•Rowan was made secretary of state. Mr. Jefferson was also, this year, re- 

' elected, with great unanimity, president of the United States. After his 

inauguration, in 1805, he appointed Hon. John Breckinridge attorney-gen- 

' eral of the United States. The latter served until 1806, when the people 

of Kentucky, and the whole country, were called to lament his untimely 

death in the very prime of his manhood. Such were the qualities of intel- 

' lect and attainments, and such the distinguished and controlling influence 

[ in the political affairs of the State and nation, of this eminent statesman, 

^ that history demands more than the mention of the sad event of death. 

' 2 He was born on, or near, the present site of Staunton, Virginia, in 1760, 

'and hence was but forty-six years of age when he died. In 1785, he mar- 

: ried Mary Hopkins Cabell, of Buckingham county, Virginia, and settled in 

Albemarle county for the practice of the profession of law. Here he lived 

^ until 1793, when he moved to Kentucky, and settled in Lexington. At 

"Cabell's Dale," his home in the county of Fayette, he died on the 14th of 

December, 1806. 

As a lawyer, no man of his day excelled him, and very few equaled him. 
' Profoundly acquainted with his profession, gifted as a public speaker, la- 
borious and exact in the performance of his professional duties and engage- 
ments — these qualities, united to his blameless private character, gave him a 
position at the bar which few men attained, and enabled him, besides the 
■ distinction he acquired, to accumulate a large fortune. An event charac- 
teristic attended the disposition of his estate, for, on his death-bed, he 
refused to make a will, saying that he had done his best to have such pro- 
visions made by law for the distribution of estates as seemed to him wise 
and just, and he would adhere to it for his own family. At the end of 
sixty years, it is not unworthy to be recorded that his wisdom and foresight, 
in this remarkable transaction, did not lose their reward. 
' As a statesman, very few men of the country occupied a more command- 
ing position, or engaged more controllingly with all the great questions of 
the day, and no one enjoyed more popularity, or maintained a more spotless 

1 Richardson's Life of A. Campbell, p. 73. 

2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 99. 



424 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

reputation. He took a leading part in all the great questions of local char- 
acter that agitated Kentucky from 1793 to 1806, and whose settlement still 
exerts a controlling influence upon the character of her people and institu- 
tions. The constitution of 1798-9, for fifty years preserved unaltered, 
was as much the work of his hands as of any other statesman. The question 
of negro slavery, as settled in that constitution, upon a moderate ground, 
the ground which Kentucky ever occupied; the systematizing, to some 
extent, the civil and criminal codes; the simplification of the land law; the 
law of descents; the penitentiary system; the abolition of the punishment 
of death, except for willful murder and treason — all these, and many other 
important subjects of a kindred nature, fell under his molding labors at the 
forming period of the Commonwealth, and remained till 1850 as they were 
adjusted half a century before. In those vital questions that involved the 
destiny of the whole West, and threatened the plan, if not the continuance, 
of the Union itself, no man took an earlier or more decided stand. It is 
capable of proof that the free navigation of the Mississippi river, and subse- 
quently the purchase of Louisiana, were literally forced upon the General 
Government by demonstrations from the West, mainly from Kentucky, in 
which the mind and the hand of this statesman were conspicuous. 

As a statesman, however, he is best known as one of the leading men 
of the old Democratic party, which came into power with Mr. Jefferson, as 
president, under whose administration he was made attorney-general of the 
United States. He was an ardent friend, personal and political, of Mr. 
Jefferson ; he coincided with him upon the great principles of the old de- 
mocracy ; he concerted with him and Mr. Madison, and others of kindred 
views, the movements which brought the Democratic party into power; he 
supported the interests of that party with eminent ability, in the Legislature 
of Kentucky, and in the Senate of the United States, and died much be- 
loved, honored, and trusted by it. After his death, it was intimated that the 
Kentucky resolutions of 1798-9, which he offered, and which were the first 
great movement against the alien and sedition laws, and the general prin- 
ciples of the party that passed them, were in fact the production of Mr. 
Jefferson himself, and not of John Breckinridge. The family of Mr. Breck- 
inridge have constantly asserted that their father was the sole and true 
author of these resolutions. 

In stature, John Breckinridge was above the middle size of men; tall, 
slender, and muscular; a man of great power and noble appearance. He 
had very clear gray eyes, and brown hair, inclining to a slight shade of 
red. He was extremely grave and silent in his ordinary intercourse; a man 
singularly courteous and gentle, and very tenderly loved by those who knew 
him. His descendants are numerous, both of his own and other names. 

1 The first instance of a pension under the government of Kentucky oc- 
curred this year, and of a most remarkable character, illustrative of the 

I Butler, p. 308. 



CONSPIRACY AGAIN DARKENS THE HORIZON. 425 

vicissitudes of the times. Clarinda Arlington, on application to the General 
JAssembly for assistance, was allowed an annuity for three years. It was 
jtilleged that she had been a prisoner with the Cherokee Indians, and was 
i";ompelled by a chief to marry him after the Indian fashion. By this mar- 
[riage she bore him three children, when she escaped from the savages and 
Look refuge in Kentucky. 

i> By the vicissitudes of fortune in the life of that remarkable genius, Gen- 
I ;ral Wilkinson, who bore, but a few years ago, such a conspicuous part in 
C;he intrigues looking to the severance of Kentucky from the Union, and her 
attachment by liberal commercial relations with the Spanish province of 
Louisiana, we find him now a general in the regular army of the United 
I'atates; and first in military command to receive from the French agent the 
[.transfer and control of this territorial empire, on its purchase from Napoleon. 
iiln 1806, when the Spanish forces were menacingly advanced to the east 
hide of the Sabine river. General Wilkinson was ordered to repel and drive 
Ithem back upon the Mexican frontier. 

1 ^ The brilliant and ambitious Aaron Burr, whose term of vice-president 
.had just expired, had mainly forfeited his political prestige and the sympa- 
thy of the people, by an ill-advised attack upon the administration, and by 

■ the death of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, at his hands. During the sum- 
imer of 1805, he visited Kentucky, and after some stay in Frankfort in an 

apparently retired manner, he proceeded on his way through all the principal 

^points in the Western country, from St. Louis to New Orleans. In the en- 
suing August, Colonel Burr returned to Lexington, on his way eastward 

I again. 

In 1806, the ubiquitous conspirator, whose mysterious changes of place 
seemed like the agitations of some evil spirit, ill at peace with itself, again 
appeared in the Western country. His headquarters seem to have been the 
ill-fated and beautiful home of Mr. Blannerhassett, on the island bearing his 
name, in the Ohio river. Rumors of desperate schemes and mad enter- 

" prises increased rapidly one upon another. Boats were known to be building 

-in the States of Kentucky and Ohio in considerable numbers; provisions 
were contracted for; and numbers of the young and ardent, with some of 

L graver character, were engaged in some military expedition, whose character 
could not be precisely ascertained. Many asserted that the expedition was 

' against Mexico, and was undertaken with the connivance, if not with the 
concurrence, of the president of the United States. 2 Artifices to produce 
this impression were afterward known to have been employed, to inveigle 

' those whose principles could not otherwise be overpowered. The difficulties 

■ of the United States with Spain confirmed the above representations. These 
various kinds of proof were communicated by Joseph H. Daveiss, the dis- 
tinguished attorney for the United States, to the president, early in January 
of this year. 

1 Butler, p. 309. 2 Jefferson's Correspondence. 



426 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

It seems that it was not until the communications of Burr, through Sam- 
uel Swartwout, to Wilkinson, in his camp at Natchitoches, and forwarded to 
President Jefferson, that the latter had exact intelligence of the plan or the 
parties. This letter was dated at Philadelphia, on the 29th of July, i8o6- 
but was not delivered, owing to Wilkinson's rapid change of movements 
from St. Louis to Natchitoches, where the messenger followed him, until the 
8th of October. Still the letter was couched in such mystified and obscure 
language, as to bear no precise interpretation, without the verbal explana- 
tions of the bearer, to which Wilkinson was referred. It announced the 
enterprise in these dark terms: "I (Aaron Burr) have obtained funds, and 
have actually commenced the enterprise. Detachments from different points, 
under different pretences, will rendezvous in Ohio, ist November — every- 
thing, internal and external, favors views : Protection of England is secured; 
Truston is going to Jamaica, to arrange with the admiral on tha-t station; it 
will meet on the Miss. — England. — Navy of the U. S. are ready to join, and 
final orders are given to my friends and followers ; it will be a host of choice 
spirits. Wilkinson shall be second to Burr only ; Wilkinson shall dictate the 
rank and promotion of his officers — Burr will proceed westward ist August, 
never to return." In another part of the letter he writes: "Already are 
orders to the contractors given, to forward six months' provisions to points 
Wilkinson may name; this shall not be used until the last moment, and then 
under proper injunctions; the project is brought to the point so long desired. 
Burr guarantees the result with his life and honor, with the lives, the honor, 
the fortunes of hundreds, the best blood oi our country. Burr's plan of oper- 
ations is, to move down rapidly from the falls on the 15th of November, 
with the first five hundred or one thousand men, in light boats, now con- 
structing for that purpose, to be at Natchez between the 5th and 15th of 
December; there to meet Wilkinson; there to determine whether it will be 
expedient in the first instance to seize on Baton Rouge! "^ 

This letter contains the most explicit details from Burr himself, in writing, 
destitute, as it no doubt purposely was left, of clear meaning, independent 
of other circumstances. To General Eaton, however, in the winter of 
1805-6, Aaron Burr signified that he was organizing a military expedition, 
to be moved against the Spanish provinces on the South-western frontiers of 
the United States. ^ This was represented to be under the authority of the 
General Government. In additional conversations, he laid open his project 
of revolutionizing the territory west of the Alleghany, and establishing an 
independent empire there; New Orleans to be the capital, and he himself 
to be the chief; organizing a military force on the waters of the Mississippi, 
and carrying conquest to Mexico. 

These projects were enlarged upon in the oral conferences between Mr. 
Swartwout and General Wilkinson, so as to represent that Colonel Burr, 
with the support of a powerful association extending from New York to New 

I Wilkinson's Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 216. 2 Burr's Trial, p. 474. 



AARON BURR INDICTED. 427 

)rleans, was levying an armed body of seven thousand men from the State 
f New York and the Western States and Territories, with a view to carry 
n expedition to the Mexican territories. 

Anterior to these developments, Burr, as has been intimated, had re- 
jurned to Kentucky in August, 1806. Here he effected the negotiation of 
Mils of exchange, to the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars, through 
'he Kentucky Insurance Company; these notes were afterward known to 
Liiave been paid for tavern expenses at Washington city, by some of the asso- 
I iates of Burr, after the explosion of the scheme. 

Colonel Daveiss, after having made exertions to penetrate the mystery 

Mf Burr's plans, even by going to St. Louis, where Wilkinson was governor, 

,0 scrutinize the movements of the general, obtaining no instructions from 

iihe executive, on the meeting of the district court of the United States, in 

■November, 1806, made oath "that he was informed, and did verily believe, 

hat Aaron Burr for several months past had been, and now is, engaged in 

preparing and setting on foot, and in providing and preparing the means 

tor, a military expedition and enterprise within this district, for the purpose 

f()f descending the Ohio and Mississippi therewith, and making war upon 

he subjects of the king of Spain." After having read this affidavit, the 

attorney added, "I have information, on which I can rely, that all theWest- 

'■;rn territories are the next object of the scheme; and, finally, all the region 

')f the Ohio is calculated as falling into the vortex of the newly-proposed 

'■evolution." 

If' The motion for process against Burr was, however, overruled, as unpre- 
'':edented and illegal; yet the daring intriguer, hearing of the intended pros- 
ecution, had the politic audacity to present himself before the court, and 
idemand an investigation of his conduct; for which, as he said, he was always 
'eady, and therefore had attended. The attorney replied to this counterfeit 
3f innocence, that he only wanted his witnesses to be ready for trial, which, 
after conversing with the marshal, he said might be on Wednesday, the nth 
of November. This day was then appointed for the meeting of a grand 
jury, and officers were dispatched with subpoenas to different parts of Ken- 
;'tucky, as well as of Indiana. 

r On the assembly of the court, upon the stated day, amid the most intense 
excitement, produced by the serious magnitude of the charge and the former 
dignity of the accused, it was found that a material witness, Davis Floyd, 
^ was absent, attending a meeting of the Indiana Legislature, of which he 
''was a member. Upon this, the court discharged the grand jury. Immedi- 
iately afterward. Burr, accompanied by his counsel, Henry Clay and John 
Allen, came into court, and on learning the dismission of the jury, gravely 
asked the reason, and expressed his regret at the step. On being informed 
^ of the cause which had led to this result, he desired that the cause of the 
postponement should be entered of record, and also the reason of the non- 
attendance of Floyd. This was done, with the consent of Colonel Daveiss. 



428 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The arch conspirator then addressed the people through the court, by say- 
ing that ^ the good people of Kentucky might, and he hoped they would 
dismiss their fears for the present; that in fact there was no ground for them 
whatever efforts had been made to excite them; that he had understood some 
had been made to apprehend that he was pursuing means inimical to their 
peace, but they were misinformed, as they would find, if the attorney should 
ever get ready and open his investigation, that in the meantime they would 
be in no manner of danger from him; that he had to act on the defensive 
only; that he should expect another attack, and hold himself ready for it. 

During these proceedings, the conduct of this adroit and most insinu- 
ating man is represented to have been grave, polite, and dignified. It 
required something of Roman sternness to withstand the blandishments of 
the winning and fascinating address of this extraordinary character. Those 
who saw him presiding in the Senate of the United States, and most particu- 
larly during the embarrassing trial of Judge Chase, may estimate the grace- 
ful dignity, the polished decision, and the silent firmness which so strikingly 
characterized this modern Cataline. 

John Rowan, then acting as secretary of state for Kentucky, and a mem- 
ber of Congress-elect, was asked to engage in his second defense, in con- 
junction with Mr. Clay. Mr. Rowan objected to it on account of his late 
congressional election, which bound him, as he thought, not to engage in a 
controversy possibly involving fidelity to the General Government. Mr. 
Clay, who had now also been elected a member of Congress, on reflection, 
concurred in this opinion, and asked the advice of Mr. Rowan. The latter 
candidly concurred with Mr. Clay in the impropriety of retiring from his 
professional engagement at the existing stage, and suggested the expediency 
of requiring from Colonel Burr a declaration, upon his honor, that he was 
engaged in no schemes hostile to the peace or union of the country. 

The reply of Mr. Burr, dated December ist, to Mr. Clay, was: 2" I 
have no design, nor have I taken any measure, to promote the dissolution of 
the Union, or a separation of any one or more States from the residue. I 
have neither published a line on this subject, nor has any one, through my 
agency or with my knowledge. I have no design to intermeddle with the 
Government, or to disturb the tranquillity of the United States, nor of its 
territories, or any part of them. I have neither issued, nor signed, nor 
promised a commission to any person, for any purpose. I do not own a 
musket, nor bayonet, nor any single article of military stores, nor does any 
person for me, by my authority or my knowledge. My view's have been 
explained to and approved by several of the principal officers of Govern- 
ment, and, I believe, are well understood by the administration and seen by 
it with complacency. They are such as every man of honor and every good 
citizen must approve. Considering the high station you now fill in our na- 
tional councils, I have thought these explanations proper, as well to coun- 

1 Marshall, Vol. II., p. 397. 2 Prentice's Biography of Henry Clay, p. 33- 



BURR S ACQUITTAL. 429 

eract the chimerical tales which malevolent persons have industriously 
I irculated as to satisfy you that you have not espoused the cause of a man 
''n any way unfriendly to the laws, the Government, or the interests of his 
i-Quntry." 

These assurances sheltered Mr. Clay from all animadversion on his pro- 
essional defense of Burr. On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Rowan had an 
'nterview with Colonel Burr, when, the latter attempting to remove some 
-ibjections which were understood to be felt by the former to engaging in his 
i'lefense, Mr. Rowan arrested the strain of remark by observing that he had 
(■)een taught from early childhood not to reason on subjects which his feel- 
ngs in the first instance condemned. 

' On the 2d of December, another grand jury was assembled, by order of 
■he district judge, at the instance of the attorney for the United States. In- 
'lictments were laid before it against John Adair and Aaron Burr, for 
instituting unlawful expeditions against the dominions of the king of Spain; 
•)ut the jury, having carefully examined and scrutinized all the testimony 
vhich had come before them, said "there had been none which in the small- 
est degree criminated either of the above persons; nor can we, from all the 
'nquiries and investigations on the subject, discover that anything improper 
-.)r injurious to the interest of the Government of the United States, or con- 
rary to the laws thereof, is designed or contemplated by either of them." 
-I This decision of the grand jury was received by a burst of applause from 
he spectators, so intense was the popular sympathy for Burr. Thus did the 
vily arts of this consummate intriguer mislead not only confiding friends, 
)ut the judicial tribunals of the country, and convert what should have been 
■' he instruments of detection into trumpets of praise and vehicles of confi- 
lence. 

A public ball was given in honor of Burr's triumph, which provoked 
mother in honor of the Union and Colonel Daveiss, for the consolation of 
he intrepid officer. 

^While this judicial farce was acting at Frankfort, and that unavoidably, 

;oo, after submitting the indictments to the jury, the president's proclama- 

1 :ion had been issued and was on the road, to arouse the people of the West- 

i srn country from the stupor produced by the Machiavelian arts of the 

('consummate deceiver. On the 27th of November, the proclamation was 

published, and on the i8th of December was known at Frankfort. On the 

•i6th, the persevering Daveiss, foiled as he had been in all his legal efforts 

'to arrest this conspiracy, still not despairing in his patriotic course, wrote 

the governor from Louisville, communicating the passage at that place of 

' Blannerhassett, with eight flat-boats and three keel-boats, having some boxes 

of arms and ammunition on board, and some men. On the confidential 

communication of this letter, the Legislature resolved that the governor be 

requested to use, with all possible expedition, the means within his power 

1 Butler, p. 317. 



43° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

to execute the duties required by the proclamation of the president of thei 
United States, bearing date of November 27th. An appHcation of the pres- 
idential agent to the Legislature of Kentucky procured an extraordinary act 
to prevent unlawful enterprises. Under this law, measures were immedi- 
ately taken to order out portions of the militia; but before they assembled 
at their posts, all the boats of Colonel Burr not intercepted by the authori- 
ties of the State of Ohio effected their passage to the mouth of Cumberland. 
There the bold adventurers, disconcerted by the late but unexpected vigor 
of the State governments, assembled with Colonel Burr to brood over their 
blasted hopes of aggrandizement on the disruption of their country. 

On the 2 2d of December, Burr descended the Cumberland river from 
Nashville, with two boats of accommodation merely. On reaching Bayou 
Pierre, in the Mississippi Territory, he surrendered himself to the civil au- 
thority. 

After this, he attempted to flee into Florida, but, on being intercepted 
by the military force, he was conveyed to Richmond, Virginia, on the 26th 
of March, 1807. Legal difficulties, arising from his absence at the military 
musters on Blannerhassett's Island, shielded this high offender from the law 
of treason. 

Thus one of the most dramatic episodes of American history, of which 
Kentucky was mainly the scene of action, passed into historic notoriety as 
"Burr's Conspiracy." The verdict of public judgment has universally pro- 
nounced the scheme as treasonable in intent, and in all the intrigues and 
devices by which its consummation was sought. So far as Colonel Burr 
may have aimed to disturb the relations of any of the States or Territories, he 
was certainly amenable to the imputation of treason. Yet, to the admirers of 
the vulgar greatness which the popular mind is ever ready to concede to 
military ascendancy, it may be observed that Burr was, at worst, only what 
Caesar, and Cromwell, and the Napoleons, might have been, if fortune had 
smiled less auspiciously on their daring usurpations. Those who are so 
easily dazzled with the guilty splendor of success, in the one case, may well 
extend a compassionate feeling to guilty misfortune, in the other, and yet 
preserve their consistency. 

As far as Burr's intentions and plans were aimed at conquest and empire 
beyond the borders of the United States territory, he was not alone to blame. 
There was a Western element, most largely represented in Kentucky, that 
longed for adventure. Though the avenues were closed by the stipulations 
of general peace, the restless spirit of the occidental Jasons longed for ad- 
venture, and the more desperate and daring it seemed, the greater were the 
fascinations to embark in it to these. The heroic age of Kentucky had well 
nigh spent its force, for the want of opportunity, but the love of adventure 
and conquest burned as intensely as of old in the hearts of many. The 
spirit is not all gone yet; but, in these modern days, we entitle it ^' filibus- 
tering.^^ Toward the provinces of Spain in the South-west, Burr's enter- 



JUDGE SEBASTIAN CHARGED WITH BRIBERY. 43 1 

.' prise may, in modified language, be termed a filibustering expedition on a 
- grand scale, dishonored because an abortion, and not a birth of empire. 

1 The atmosphere of public and political life was this year made rife with 
the elements of official bad faith, stirred up by the legislative proceedings 

• in regard to the conspiracy of Burr. It was during the session of the Legis- 
' lature in 1806 that, on motion, an inquiry was ordered into the conduct of 
> Judge Sebastian. 

The resolution of inquiry was in the following words : 
■ "Whereas, This House has been informed and given to understand 
that Benjamin Sebastian, one of the judges of the Court of Appeals of this 
J Commonwealth, has been, during his continuance in office, a pensioner of 
the Spanish Government; wherefore, 

"■Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the facts, and 
such other facts relating thereto as may be deemed proper for investiga- 
' tion." 
Il^ A committee was accordingly appointed, with full power to send for 
" ' persons, papers, and records for their information. The disclosures pro- 
duced by this committee established the fact that Judge Sebastian, while a 
high judicial officer of Kentucky, had been for over ten years in the receipt 
of a pension from the court of Spain of two thousand dollars a year. This 
' amount had been received for him by Thomas Bullitt, of Louisville, in 1801 
and 1802; and a draft for the pension, on the Spanish governor of New 
Orleans, had been found by Charles Wilkins, in the papers of John A. Seitz, 
deceased, of Natchez. In the course of this investigation. Judge Innes was 
' summoned before the committee, and detailed of his own honorable frank- 

* ness, the successive visits of Thomas Power, as the agent of the Baron De 
Carondelet, the governor of Louisiana, in 1795, ^^d again in 1797, to nego- 

- tiate for commercial privileges, and finally for forcible separation from the 
' rest of the confederacy, with Messrs. Sebastian, Innes, Nicholas, and Mur- 
'^ ray. On this evidence, the previous statement of the Spanish conspiracy 
r has been mainly founded. The conclusion of the committee was that Judge 
^ Sebastian had been guilty as charged, and his conduct in doing so was sub- 
versive of every duty he owed to the constituted authorities of our country, 
and highly derogatory to the character of Kentucky. This report was 
unanimously agreed to by the House. The judge having resigned, no 
further measures were taken. 

' The testimony in regard to Judge Sebastian, having fixed on him the 

charges of bribery and foreign pension, though confined to him alone, and 

. ■ though the offer of two hundred thousand dollars had been rejected by his 

"high-minded associates, Innes and Nicholas, yet it fastened an imputation 

upon the latter gentleman, which in this instance he did not deserve, and 

I' which distressed him through the remainder of his life. Thus sensitive was 

■ this venerable man to even the appearance of a blemish on his character. 

I Butler, p. 320. 



432 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The memory of Innes and Nicholas is free from all suspicion of being 
tainted with foreign money; and it is only fair to let these distinguished and 
faithful public men speak for themselves: 

"The reasons," says Judge Innes, "why myself and Colonel Nicholas 
did not communicate the subject to the executive of the United States were 
these: First, it was known that neither of us approved of Mr. Adams' ad- 
ministration, and that we believed he kept a watchful eye over our action; 
that the communication must depend upon his opinion of our veracity, and 
it would have the appearance of courting his favor ; secondly, that we both 
had reason and did believe that the then administration were disposed, upon 
the slightest pretext, to send an army to this State, which we considered 
would be a grievance upon the people, and therefore declined making any 
communication on the subject, as we apprehended no danger from the 
Spanish Government."^ 

It becomes here the imperative duty of the historian to turn back for 
almost a quarter of a century, to the period when these foreign intrigues 
began first to agitate the sentiment of Kentucky, and to review them from 
an entirely different standpoint. So far, the testimonies introduced as to the 
proceedings and parties implicated have been such as appeared from time 
to time in the discussions and investigations within our own State, where 
there could be no official records and proofs to remove the veil of mystery 
which so long hung over this romantic episode of history. Such official 
records were, of course, only in existence with the foreign authorities with 
whom the conspirators in Kentucky held communication. These records 
are on file mainly in the archives of Spain, at Madrid, and have become 
to us a revelation that clears up all mystery and doubt as to the formidable 
significance of the intrigues by which it was sought to sever the Union, by 
the divide of the Alleghany range. 

Of the correspondence and papers between Wilkinson and his associates, 
and the Spanish authorities at New Orleans, Gayarre says, in his "History 
of Louisiana under the Spanish Domination," that " Most of these dis- 
patches, if not all, were originally in cipher ; they are to be found at length, 
and in Spanish, in the archives of Spain. Copies made in compliance with 
a resolution of the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, under the super- 
vision of M. de Gayangos, a gentleman distinguished for his learning and 
literary works, and also under the direction of his excellency, Romulus 
Saunders, who was then the United States minister at Madrid, are depos- 
ited in the office of the secretary of stale at Baton Rouge." Gayarre has 
most liberally quoted these documents from the latter official file, and pre- 
sents to us, upon the pages of his history, an intensely-interesting account 
of the intrigues, from their inception to the end. 

In the letter of the 8th of January, 1788, from Miro, Intendant of the 
province of Louisiana, to Valdes, secretary of state for the Indies, at Mad- 



I Journal of 1806-7. 



I 



Wilkinson's letter. 433 

rid, his understanding of the relations of General Wilkinson are expressed 
in the following extracts: "The delivering up of Kentucky unto his maj- 
esty's hands, which is the main object to which Wilkinson has promised to 
devote himself entirely, would forever constitute this province a rampart for 
the protection of New Spain. The Western people would no longer have 
any inducement to emigrate, if they were put in possession of a free trade 
with us. This is the reason why this privilege should be granted to only a 
few individuals having influence among them, as is suggested in Wilkinson's 
memorial; because seeing the advantages bestowed on a few individuals, 
they might be easily persuaded to acquire the like, by becoming Spanish 
subjects." 

On the nth of April, 1788, Miro and Navarro, in a joint dispatch, in- 
formed the Spanish cabinet that they had received a communication from 
Wilkinson, in cipher, from which the following is quoted: ^ "I have col- 
lected much European and American news, and have made various obser- 
vations for our political designs. It would take a volume to contain all I 
have to communicate to you; but 1 dispatch this letter with such haste, and 
its fate is so uncertain, that I hope you will excuse me for not saying more 
until the arrival of my boats; and in the meantime I hope you will content 
yourself with this assurance. All ?ny predictions are verifying themselves, and 
not a fneasure is taken on both sides of the mountains which does not conspire 
to favor ours^ 

In the archives is a letter of Wilkinson's, written from Kentucky, to 
Miro and Navarro, of date May 15th, from which we quote: "-My dear and 
venerable Sirs: I have for the second time the pleasure of addressing you, 
and I flatter myself that some time ago you received my first, which I sent 
by express in a pirogue with two oarsmen, and the answer to which I am 
continually expecting. Major Isaac Dunn, the bearer of this dispatch, and 
an old military companion of mine, came to settle in these parts during my 
absence. Permit me to recommend him as one worthy of your entire con- 
fidence, and as a safe and sagacious man, acquainted with the political state 
of the American Union, and with the circumstances of this section of the 
country. On the ist of January next, 1789, by mutual consent, this district 
will cease to be subjected to the jurisdiction of Virginia. A convention has 
been called already to form the constitution of this section of the country, 
and I am persuaded that no action on the part of Congress will ever induce 
this people to abandon the plan which they have adopted, although I have 
intelligence that Congress will, without doubt, recognize us as a sovereign 
State. 

"The convention of which I have spoken will meet in July. I will, in 
the meantime, inquire into the prevailing opinions, and shall be able to as- 
certain the sentiments of the members elected. When this is done, after 
having previously come to an understanding with two or three individuals 

I Gayarre's History, p. 206 

28 



434 HJSTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

capable of assisting me, I shall disclose so much of our great scheme as may 
appear opportune, according to circumstances, and I have no doubt but that 
it will meet with a favorable reception, because, although I have been com- 
municative with no more than two individuals, I have sounded many, and 
wherever it has seemed expedient to me to make known my answer to your 
memorial, it has caused the keenest satisfaction. Colonel Alexander Scott 
Bullitt and Harry Innes, our attorney-general, are the only individuals to 
whom I have entrusted our views, and, in case of any mishap befalling me 
before their accomplishment, you may, in perfect security, address your- 
selves to these gentlemen, whose political designs entirely agree with yours. 
Thus, as soon as the new government shall be organized and adopted by the 
people, they will proceed to elect a governor, members of the Legislature, 
and other officers, and I doubt not they will name a political agent with 
power to treat of the affair with which we are engaged, and I think this will 
all be done by the month of March next. 

" I do not anticipate any obstacle from Congress, because, under the 
present Federal compact, that body can neither dispose of men nor money, 
and the new government, should it establish itself, will have to encounter 
difficulties which will keep it weak for three or four years, before the expira- 
tion of which I have good grounds to hope that we shall have completed 
our negotiations, and shall have become too strong to be subjected by any 
force that may be sent against us. The only fears I have proceed from the 
policy which may prevail in your court. I am afraid of a change in the 
present ministry, and in the administration of Louisiana." 

^The impressions made on the mind of Miro by these dispatches are set 
forth in the following observations, which he forwarded to the cabinet at 
Madrid, along with the letter of Wilkinson: "The flat-boats of Brigadier- 
General Wilkinson have just arrived with a cargo that cost seven thousand 
dollars in Kentucky, under the care of Major Dunn, who has delivered me 
the letter of which I forward a translation. It will make you acquainted 
with the State in which is the principal affair mentioned in my confidential 
dispatch, No. 13. This major confirms all Wilkinson's assertions, and gives 
it out as certain that next year, after the meeting of the first assemblies in 
which Kentucky will act as an independent State, she will separate entirely 
from the Federal Union. He further declares that he has come to this con- 
clusion from having heard it expressed in various conversations among the 
most distinguished citizens of the State; that the direction of the current of 
the rivers which run in front of their dwellings points clearly to the power 
with which they ought to ally themselves. The said brigadier-general, in a 
private letter addressed to me, adds that he flatters himself with the pros- 
pect of being the delegate of his State to present to me the propositions 
which will be offered by his countrymen, and that he hopes to embrace me 
in April next. 

I Gayarre's History, p. 211. 



NAVARRO'S REPRESENTATIONS. 435 

"Although his candor and the information I have sought from many who 
: have known him well seem to assure us that he is working in good earnest, 
yet I am aware that his intention may be to enrich himself at our expense 
. by inflating us with hopes and promises which he knows to be vain. Never- 
theless, I have determined to humor him on this occasion. As you have 
; seen, Wilkinson had promised a volume of information when his flat-boats 
should come down. He has kept his word, and transmitted me various 
: newspapers containing articles on the Mississippi, and a paper of his own, 
; full of reflections on the new Federal Government, the establishments on 
! the Ohio, and the navigation of the Mississippi." 

1 Navarro, an able and gifted statesman, had preceded Miro as intendant 
. of Louisiana. On retiring to return to Spain, in a last dispatch to Madrid, 
' to be submitted as a memorial to the king, he seeks to portray, in strong 
I colors, the situation in the province over which he had charge, and at the 

request of the minister of the department for the Indies. He represented 
' that Spain must apprehend imminent danger from the thirteen American 
colonies which had recently become free and independent and had assumed 
c rank among the nations of the earth, under the appellation of the United 
States of America. He dwelt with marked emphasis on the ambition and 
■ thirst of conquest which his keen eye could detect in the breast of the new- 
born giant, who, as he predicted with prophetic accuracy, would not rest 
1 satisfied until he had stretched his domains across the continent and bathed 
i his vigorous young Hmbs in the placid waves of the Pacific. This ominous 
and dreaded event was only to be prevented by severing the Atlantic States 
i from the boundless West, where so much power was only slumbering in the 
; lap of the wilderness. To do this, Spain must grant every sort of commer- 
' cial privileges to the masses in the Western region, and shower pensions and 
honors on their leaders. This memorial produced a powerful impression at 
i Madrid, and confirmed the Government of Spain in the policy already 
* begun. 

2 On the 3d of November, 1788, Miro wrote to Minister Valdes, at 
Madrid, as follows : * ' This affair proceeds more rapidly than I had pre- 
sumed, and some considerable impetus is given to it by the answer of Con- 
gress to the application of Kentucky to be admitted into the Union as an 
independent State. That answer is, that the new Federal Government 
which is soon to go into operation will take their wishes into consideration, 
and will act thereon." This information Don Diego Gardoqui must have 
communicated, but he did not what follows : 

"Oliver Pollock, a citizen of Philadelphia, who arrived here three days 
ago, in a vessel from Martinique, has declared to me that Brown, a member 
of Congress, who is a man of property in Kentucky, told him in confidence 
that, in the debates of that body on the question of the independence of 
that Territory, he saw clearly the intention of his colleagues was, that Ken- 

1 Gayarre's History, p. 217. 2 Copy of Archives, filed at Baton Rouge. 



436 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tucky should remain under the jurisdiction of Congress, Hke the county of 
lUinois, and that a governor should be appointed by them for that province 
as for the other, but that, as this was opposed to the welfare of the inhab- 
itants of Kentucky, he was determined to return home (which he did before 
Pollock's departure from Philadelphia), and, on his arrival, to call for a 
general assembly of his fellow-citizens, in order to proceed immediately to 
declare themselves independent, and to propose to Spain the opening of a 
commercial intercourse with reciprocal advantages; and that, to accomplish 
this object, he would send to Pollock the necessary documents, to be laid 
before me, and to be forwarded to your excellency. He requested Pollock 
to prepare me for it in anticipation. 

"Your excellency will therefore rest assured that Brown, on his arrival 
in Kentucky, finding Wilkinson and his associates disposed to surrender 
themselves up to Spain, or at least to put themselves under her protection, 
will easily join them, and it is probable, as Wilkinson has already foretold it, 
that, next spring, I shall have to receive here a deputation appointed in due 
form. 

" I acted toward Pollock with a great deal of caution, and answered him 
as one to whom had been communicated some new and unlooked-for infor- 
mation, giving him to understand that I could not pledge to him my support 
before seeing the documents which he expected." 

^On the 1 2th of February, 1789, Wilkinson again wrote at length to Gov- 
ernor Miro, asserting that he had, at that time, disclosed himself fully only 
to Innes and Colonel Bullitt; and having since made a stricter inquiry, dis- 
covered that the proposed new government of the United States had inspired 
some with apprehension, and others with hope, in which he foresaw some 
probable cause of opposition and delay. All idea of Kentucky subjecting 
herself to Spain must be abandoned for the present; the only feasible plan 
now was to effect a separation from the Union, and an alliance with Spain 
on terms to be negotiated. He had brought this question of separation be- 
fore the people with earnestness and adroitness, speaking of it in general 
terms as having been recommended by eminent politicians of the Atlantic 
coast, with whom he had conversed on the affair; and thus, by indirect sug- 
gestions and arguments, he had inspired the people with his own views, 
without urging them as original with him. He found all the men of the 
first class of society in the district, with the exception of Marshall and 
Muter, decidedly in favor of separation, and afterward for an alliance with 
Spain. At first, these two objectors had expressed the same sentiments for 
separation, but their feelings had taken a different direction, from private 
motives of interest and from personal pique. He then determined to bring 
the question into the convention. From the same letter we quote : 

" I was then occupied until the 28th of July, on which day our conven- 
tion met at Danville, in conformity with the ordinance you saw in the Gazette 

I Copy Spanish Archives, Baton Rouge. 



IN A STATE OF INDECISION. 437 

which I sent you by Major Dunn. The Hon. Samuel McDowell, president 
c of the convention, had the day before received a package from the secretary 
of Congress, containing an account of the proceedings of that body on the 
subject, which excited our solicitude — that is, our intended separation from 
the State of Virginia. 

" You will remember that, in my memorial, I was of opinion that the 
Atlantic States would not consent to the admission of this district into the 
, Union, as an independent State, but, on my return from New Orleans, I 
was induced to alter my opinion, from the information which I received 
through persons of the highest authority, and under that new impression, I 
wrote you by Major Dunn. Thus we were not prepared for an unexpected 
, event, of which we could have received no premonition. You will at first 
sight discover, on perusing the aforesaid paper No. i, that this act of Con- 
gress was passed with the intention to gain time, amuse and deceive the 
\ people of this district, and make them believe that they could rely on the 
good dispositions of the Atlantic States, until the formation of the new gov- 
ernment, when our opponents flatter themselves that it will be able to check 
our designs. Unfortunately, this artifice produced but too much effect 
- on the members of this convention, and confirmed the apprehensions of 
; others. 

"From this proceeding of Congress, it resulted that the convention was 

of opinion that our proposed independence and separation from Virginia 

I not being ratified, its mission and powers were at end, and we found our- 

; selves in the alternative either of proceeding to declare our independence, 

I or of waiting according to the recommendation of Congress. This was the 

state of affairs, when the Hon. Caleb Wallace, one of our supreme judges, 

: the attorney-general, Innes, and Benjamin Sebastian, proposed a prompt 

/ separation from the American Union, and advocated with intrepidity the 

ii necessity of the measure. The artifice of Congress was exposed, its proceed- 

, ings reprobated, the consequences of depending on a body whose interests 

1 were opposed to ours were depicted in the most vivid colors, and the strongest 

motives were set forth to justify the separation. 

"Nevertheless, sir, when the question was finally taken, fear and folly 
prevailed against reason and judgment. It was thought safer and more 
convenient to adhere to the recommendation of Congress, and, in conse- 
quence, it was decided that the people be advised to elect a new convention, 
, which should meet in the month of November, in conformity with the ordi- 
' nance which you will find in the Gazette, No. 2. 

"Some of my friends urged me to avail myself of this opportunity to 
revive the great question, but I thought it more judicious to indulge those 
who, for the moment, wish only that a new application be made for the 
independence and separation of Kentucky from Virginia, and that a memo- 
rial be made to Congress on the necessity of obtaining the free use of the 
navigation of the Mississippi. I assented to these last propositions the more 



43^ , HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

readily that it was unanimously resolved that, should any of them be rejected, 
then the people would be invited to adopt all the measures necessary to 
secure for themselves a separate government from that of the United States, 
because it would have become evident that Congress had neither the will 
nor the power to satisfy their hopes. I determined, therefore, to wait for 
the effects which will result from the disappointment of those hopes, and 
on which I rely to unite the country into one opinion. This is the basis on 
which the great question now rests, and the convention has adjourned to the 
next month. 

"Thus, sir, if we review the policy favored by the inhabitants of Ken- 
tucky, we see that the most intelligent and the wealthiest relish our designs, 
which are opposed by only two men of rank, who, controlled by their fears 
of silly demagogues, and filling their followers with hopes from the expected 
action of the new Congress, have caused the suspension of the measures we 
had in view to unite the people, and thus to secure the success of our plans 
without involving the country in violent civil commotions. 

"There are three conditions which are requisite to perpetuate the con- 
nection of this section of the country with the Atlantic States. The first, 
and most important, is the navigation of the Mississippi; the second, which 
is of equal consequence, is the admission of this district into the Union 
as an independent State, and on the same footing with the others; the third, 
which is of less moment, is the exemption from taxes until the befalling 
of the two events previously mentioned. Now, sir, as two of these condi- 
tions are inadmissible, either by the Atlantic States or by Spain, can any 
one hesitate to declare what will be the consequences ? With due deference, 
I say, no; because, as it is not rational to suppose the voluntary casting 
away of property that another may profit by it, so it is not to be presumed 
that the Eastern States, which at present have the balance of power in their 
favor in the American Government, will consent to strip themselves of this 
advantage, and increase the weight of the Southern States, by acknowledging 
the independence of this district, and admitting it to be a member of the 
Federal Union. That the people of Kentucky, as soon as they are certain 
of their being refused what they claim, will separate from the United States 
is proclaimed, even by Marshall, Muter, and their more timid followers. 

"But, sir, should unforeseen events produce results contrary to my 
wishes, to my logical deductions, and to my hopes, should an obstinate re- 
sistance to forming a connection with Spain, or should an unexpectedly 
hostile disposition manifest itself in the settlements, then the true policy 
would be to make of emigration the principal object to be obtained, and 
Spain would always have the power, through some agents of an eminent 
rank here, to draw to her the most respectable portion of the population of 
this district. Hundreds have applied to me on this subject, who are deter- 
mined to follow my example, and I do not deceive myself, nor do I deceive 
you, sir, when I affirm that it is in my power to lead a large body of the 



PROPOSALS FROM GREAT BRITAIN. 



439 



■ 



, most opulent and most respectable of my fellow-citizens whither I shall go 
.! myself at their head; and I flatter myself that, after the dangers I have run 
J and the sacrifices which I have made, after having put my honor and my 
life in your hands, you can have no doubts of my favorable dispositions 
toward the interests of his Catholic majesty, as long as my poor services 
j shall be necessary. 

"After having read these remarks, you will be surprised at being in- 
j formed that lately I have, jointly with several gentlemen of this country, 
applied to Don Diego Gardoqui for a concession of land, in order to form 
a settlement upon the river Yazoo. The motive of this application is to 
procure a place of refuge for myself and my adherents, in case it should 
, become necessary for us to retire from this country, in order to avoid the 
resentment of Congress. It is true that there is not, so far, the slightest 
appearance of it, but it is judicious to provide for all possible contingencies. 
"The British Colonel Connelly, who is mentioned in General St. Clair's 
letter, arrived at Louisville in the beginning of October, having traveled 
from Detroit, through the woods, to the mouth of the river Big Miami, from 
which he came down the Ohio in a boat. My agent in Louisville gave me 
immediate information of that fact, and of the intention which Connelly 
had to visit me. Suspecting the nature of the negotiation he had on hand, 
I determined, in order to discover his secret views, to be beforehand with 
him, and to invite him here. Consequently, he came to my house on the 
8th of November. I received him courteously, and as I manifested favor- 
able dispositions toward the interests of his Britannic majesty, I soon gained 
his confidence, so much so that he informed me that Great Britain, desiring 
to assist the American settlers in the West, in their efforts to open the nav- 
igation of the Mississippi, would join them with ready zeal to dispossess 
Spain of Louisiana. He remarked that the forces in Canada were not suffi- 
cient to send detachments of them to us, but that Lord Dorchester would 
supply us with all the implements of war, and with money, clothing, and 
supplies to equip ten thousand men, if we wished to engage in that enter- 
prise. He added that, as soon as our plan of operation should be agreed 
upon, these articles would be sent from Detroit, through Lake Erie, to the 
river Miami, and thence to the Wabash, to be transported to any designated 
point on the Ohio, and that a fleet of light vessels would be ready at Jamaica 
to take possession of the Balize, at the same time that we should make an 
attack from above. He assured me that he was authorized by Lord Dor- 
chester to confer honors and other rewards on the men of influence who 
should enter on that enterprise, and that all those who were officers in the 
late continental army should be provided with the same grade in the service 
of Great Britain. He urged me much to favor his designs, offering me what 
rank and emoluments I might wish for, and telling me at the same time that 
he was empowered to grant commissions for the raising of two regiments, 
which he hoped to form in Kentucky. 




440 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

"After having conversed with him, and found out all that I wished to- 
know, I began to weaken his hopes by observing that the feelings of ani- 
mosity engendered by the late revolution were so recent in the hearts of 
the Americans, that I considered it impossible to entice them into an alliance 
with Great Britain; that in this district, particularly in that part of it where 
the inhabitants had suffered so much from the barbarous hostilities of the 
Indians, which were attributed to British influence, the resentment of every 
individual was much more intense and implacable. In order to justify this 
opinion of mine, and induce him to go back, I employed a hunter, who 
feigned attempting his life. The pretext assumed by the hunter was the 
avenging of the death of his son, murdered by the Indians at the supposed 
instigation of the English. As I hold the commission of a civil judge, it 
was, of course, to be my duty to protect him against the pretended mur- 
derer, whom I caused to be arrested and held in custody. I availed myself 
of this circumstance to communicate to Connelly my fear of not being able 
to answer for the security of his person, and I expressed my doubts whether 
he could escape with life. It alarmed him so much that he begged me to 
give him an escort to conduct him out of our territory, which I readily 
assented to; and on the 20th of November he recrossed the Ohio upon his 
way back to Detroit. I did not dismiss him without having previously im- 
pressed upon him the propriety of informing me, in as short a time as pos- 
sible, of the ultimate designs of Lord Dorchester. As this man was under 
the protection of the laws of nations, and as he carefully avoided to commit 
any offense against our government, I considered the measure I had resorted 
to as the most appropriate to destroy his hopes with regard to this country, 
and I think that the relation he will make on his return to Canada will pro- 
duce the desired effect. But should the British be disposed to renew the 
same attempt, as it may very well turn out to be the case, I shall be ready 
to oppose and crush it in the bud. 

"I deem it useless to mention to a gentleman well versed in political 
history that the great spring and prime mover in all negotiations is money. 
For these objects, I have advanced five thousand dollars out of my own 
funds, and half of this sum, applied opportunely, would attract Marshall 
and Muter on our side, but it is now impossible for me to disburse it." 

General St. Clair, in a letter to Major Dunn, of date December 5th, 
says: " Dear Dunn, I am much grieved to hear that there are strong dis- 
positions on the part of the people of Kentucky to break off their connec- 
tions with the United States, and that our friend Wilkinson is at the head of 
this affair. Such a consummation would involve our country in the great- 
est difficulties and completely ruin it. Should there be any foundation for 
these reports, for God's sake make use of your influence to detach Wilkin- 
son from that party." 

Though Wilkinson promised no further dispatches until May, yet on the 
14th of February, he again wrote to Miro, from which letter we quote: 



MIRO FORWARDS THE DOCUMENTS. 44I 

- i*'If you have felt some disquietude over the silence of the ministry on my 
memorial, and if you have nothing satisfactory from our dear friend Na- 
varro, I think you should be satisfied, because it seems our plan has been 
eagerly accepted. Don Gardoqui has received ample powers to make proper 
arrangements in order to estrange our people from the Union, and induce 
them to form an alliance with Spain. I received this information first from 

\- Mr. Brown, congressman from this district, who, since our application for 
admission into the Union has been suspended, entered into some free com- 
munications on this matter with Gardoqui. He returned home in Septem- 
ber, and, finding some opposition to our project, positively refused to 
advocate in public the propositions of Gardoqui, as he deemed them fatal 

I to our cause. Brown is one of our deputies or agents; he is a young man 
of respectable talents, but timid, without experience, and with very little 
knowledge of the world. Nevertheless, as he perseveres in his adherence 
to our interests, we have sent him to the new Congress, apparently as our 
representative, but in reality as a spy on the actions of that body. I would 
myself have undertaken that charge, but I did not, for two reasons — first, 
my presence was necessary here ; and next, I should have found myself 
under the obligation of swearing to support the new Government, which in 
duty I am bound to oppose." 

This lengthy supplemental dispatch closes with the pithy and facetious 
expression: "Herein enclosed (Doc. No. 3), you will find two Gazettes, 
which contain all the proceedings of our last convention. You will observe 
that the memorial to Congress was presented by me, and perhaps your first 
impression will be one of surprise that such a document should have issued 
from the pen of so good a Spaniard. But my policy is to justify in the eye 
of the world our meditated separation from the Union, and to quiet the ap- 
prehensions of some friends in the Atlantic States. Thus having publicly 
represented our rights and established our pretensions, if Congress does not 
support them, which it can not do, even if it had the inclination, not only 
will all the people of Kentucky, but also the whole world, approve our seek- 
ing protection from another quarter." 

2 On the nth of April, Miro forwarded the two very expressive dispatches 
of Wilkinson to Madrid, and the documents annexed to them. He shares 
Wilkinson's opinion that the independence of the Western people, under 
protection of and alliance with Spain, would be more to the interest of Spain 
than direct annexation to her dominions, on account of the responsibilities 
and expenses which such an acquisition would entail, and also on account 
of the jealousies and oppositions it would elicit from other powers. He 
urgently inquires of the cabinet what he shall do in case Kentucky declares 
her independence and sends delegates to him. He is unprepared to supply 
her people with ammunition, arms, and other implements they may need to 

i^Copy of Spanish Archives, Baton Rouge. 
2 Spanish Archives. 



442 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

resist any action of the Federal Government, should it attempt to coerce 
them into submission. Said he further to the minister : "In paragraph B, 
you will find an account of the bold act which Wilkinson has ventured to 
take, in presenting his first memorial in a public convention. In this act, 
he has so completely bound himself that, should he not be able to obtain 
the separation of Kentucky from the Union, it has become impossible for 
him to live there, unless he has suppressed, which is possible, certain passages 
which might injure him. On account of the opposition of Marshall and 
Muter, the convention ordered new memorials to be presented to Virginia 
and to Congress, to obtain the independence of Kentucky, her admission 
into the Union, and the free navigation of the Mississippi." 

Miro adds, that he disagreed with Wilkinson as to the solution of the 
first two questions, and expressed the opinion that their separation from 
Virginia and reception into the Union would be conceded to them ; that the 
answer of Congress was not deceitful, because the right of Kentucky to 
what she claims is incontestable, and derived from the articles of confedera- 
tion on which the United States established their first government. He 
thought, with Wilkinson, that it was a bad stroke of policy on the part of 
Spain to have granted the Kentuckians the navigation of the Mississippi, as 
it withdrew a motive of self-interest to become independent, and to rely on 
Spain. 

It must not be supposed that the intrigues of the Spanish cabinet were 
devoted exclusively to Kentucky. They were busily and artfully applied in 
the Western district of North Carolina, now embraced in Tennessee, and 
in the territory between Upper Georgia and the Mississippi river. 

1 As early as 1786, the western portion of North Carolina, known as 
Washington district, had declared itself independent, and had constituted 
itself into the State of Frankland, organized its government, and elected 
Colonel John Sevier its first governor. The energetic assertion of authority 
by North Carolina, the interference of Congress, the arrest of Sevier on 
charge of treason, and his daring rescue from the court-room by his bold 
followers, and final escape, all followed promptly — and thus Frankland termi- 
nated its brief career in 1787. This first attempt in the West to throw off 
openly the allegiance due to the parent State had aroused intense excite- 
ment for and against it, and the secessionists, still persevering in their for- 
mer designs, were watching for the opportunity to renew them. Thus, on 
the 1 2th of September, 1788, ex-Governor John Sevier had written to Gar- 
doqui, to inform him that the inhabitants of Frankland were unanimous in 
their vehejnent desire to form an alliance and treaty of commerce with Spain, 
and put themselves under her protection. Wherefore, he begged for ammuni- 
tion, money, and whatever other assi-^tance Miro could grant, to aid the 
execution of the contemplated separation from North Carolina, pledging 
the faith of the State of Frankland for the payment of whatever sums Spain 

I (rayarre's History of Louisiana, p. 257. 



r SPAIN S CONDITIONS TO FRANKLAND. 443 

might advance, and whatever expenses she might incur, in an enterprise 
which would secure to her such durable and important results. "Before 

- concluding this communication," said Sevier, "it is necessary that I should 
mention that there can not be a moment more opportune than the present, 

^ to carry our plan into execution. North Carolina has refused to accept the 
new constitution proposed for the confederacy, and therefore a considera- 
ble time will elapse before she becomes a member of the Union, if that 
event ever happens." 

The settlers on the Cumberland river, who were also under the jurisdic- 
tion of North Carolina, were deeply interested in the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi, and therefore were equally influenced by the motives which were 
operating so powerfully on the people of Kentucky and other portions of 
the West. The name of Miro, given to a district which they had lately 
formed, shows which way their partiality was leaning at that time. 

Dr. James White was one of the most active agents employed by Gar- 
doqui to operate on the Western people, and this individual had come to 
Louisiana to enter into an understanding with Miro on the execution of the 
mission with which he had been entrusted. In a communication which he 
addressed to Miro, on the i8th of April, 1789, he said: "With regard to 
Frankland, Don Diego Gardoqui gave me letters for the chief men of that 
district, with instructions to assure them that if they wished to put them- 
selves under the protection of Spain and favor her interests, they should be 
protected in their civil and political government, in the form and manner 
most agreeable to them, on the following conditions : ' First — It should be 
absolutely necessary, not only in order to hold any office, but also any land, 
in Frankland, that an oath of allegiance be taken to his majesty, the object 
and purport of which should be to defend his government and faithful vas- 
sals on all occasions, and against all his enemies, whoever they might be. 
Second — That the inhabitants of that district should renounce all submission 
or allegiance whatever to any other sovereign or power.' They have eagerly 
accepted these conditions, and the Spanish minister has referred me to your 
favor, patronage, and assistance, to facilitate my operations. With regard 
to Cumberland district, what I have said of Frankland applies to it with 
equal force and truth." 

This is enough for our Kentucky history, simply to convey an idea of 
the significance given to the Spanish policy of limiting the power and juris- 
diction westward, by the Alleghany range. The most cherished aim was 
to bring under the provincial dominion of Spain all the territory south of 
the Ohio river to the Floridas, and west of the mountain divide ; or, failing 
in this, to encourage and effect a separation of the inhabitants of the same 
from the old Union of thirteen States, and thereby erect a barrier between 
the Louisiana domain and the aggressive and conquering Americans. The 
opportunities could not have been more propitious and tempting. But two 
essentials were lacking to make of the expansive and alluring project a pos- 



444 HISTORY OF KEXTUCKV. 

sibility. Spain, under the blighting curse of titled caste and of kingcrai't 
and priestcraft, had already fallen into impassive stagnation, and political 
inanition rendered nerveless every arm of its power; while the Spaniard 
everywhere negotiated and intrigued in timid secrecy and cipher, as though 
sadly conscious of feebleness from departed vigor and prestige. The adven- 
turous and bold Anglo-American instinctively saw and felt this self-conscious 
inferiority, and held his neighboring Hidalgo of chivalry at a discount that 
barely saved him from reserved contempt. Had England or France occupied 
the same vantage ground at the same period, the autonomy of the trans- 
montane territories might have been very differently formulated, with very 
different jurisdictions. The people of Kentucky were too independent and 
warlike to have become provincial to any foreign power. It was within the 
limits of contingent probability that she might have become separately inde- 
pendent of the Federal Union. Had she done so under existing circum- 
stances, it is quite inferable that, with her population of over two hundred 
thousand in iSoo, under some powerful prompting or pretext, an army of 
her restless foresters would have floated down the Mississippi, and attempted 
the conquest and occupancy of New Orleans and Louisiana. 

But as we stand off at the distance of a century, and review this remark- 
able episode of our early history, we gratefully acknowledge that the order- 
ings of a wise Providence conspired to the final results which seem to have 
been the best. The failure of the present intrigues was becoming but too 
evident. We follow it to an early close. On the 5th of January. 1790, 
Sebastian addressed a letter to Wilkinson, lu'ging. as this affair had taken 
up the greater portion of his time, that the Spanish Government should 
indemnify him, if it did not generously reward him. On principle, he 
professed to be as much attached to the interests of Louisiana as any one of 
the subjects of his Catholic majesty. This letter Wilkinson forwarded to 
Miro. About the 26th of January, a letter from Wilkinson to Miro was 
couched in less flattering tones. The grant of the navigation of the Missis-- 
sippi had satisfied the people, and even left them with little desire or motive 
to emigrate to Louisiana. On his return home to Kentucky, he had found 
a great change even among the warmest friends. ^ "I attribute this." said 
he, "either to the hope of promotion, or the fear of punishment. According 
to my prognostic. Washington has begun to operate on the chief heads of 
this district. Innes has been appointed a Federal judge; George Nicholas, 
district attorney; McDowell, son of the president of the convention, and 
Marshall, to offices resembling that of Alguazil mayor, and Peyton Short is 
made a court-house oflScer. I place little reliance on Nicholas and Mc- 
Dowell; but Innes is friendly to Spain and hostile to Congress, and I am 
authorized to say that he would much prefer receiving a pension from New 
Orleans than one from New York. I fear that we can rely on but few of 
our countrymen, if we can not make use of liberal means. Should the 

I Spanish Archives. Gaj-arre's History, p. 275. 



i 



MIRO S SUGGESTIONS ACTED UPON. 445 

•king approve our designs on this point, it will have to be broached with 
difficulty." 

Relative to the convention to be held in June, he promises to attend, 
:ind, with the help of Sebastian and other friends, to do all in his power to 
.[)romote the cause. He is strongly suspected by Congress, which spies his 
jiiovements at every step. An open avowal of plans now to separate from 
the Union would endanger his personal security, and deprive him of the 
power of serving the interests of Spain. The situation was painful and 
-mortifying, that, while abhorring all deceit, he was obliged to dissemble. 
iThis condition leads him to devise an opportunity to "publicly propose 
.himself a vassal of his Catholic majesty, and contingently claim his pro- 
;tection." 

On the 2 2d of INIay, Miro rendered an account of his last transactions 
-with Wilkinson, with the correspondence, in dispatches to Madrid. He 
•agreed that the concessions of the right of navigation and trade to the Ken- 
tuckians had prejudiced the hopes of separation and alliance with Spain; 
net he had not imagined that the effects would be so sudden. Wilkinson's 
hosts of influential followers had mysteriously vanished, excepting Sebastian. 
-He considered that he was liable to be misled in his opinions of a man 
■operating six hundred leagues away, and who had rendered, and was yet 
^rendering, services to his majesty, as explained before. But now he is full 
>of invincible obstacles and personal risks should he declare himself, and 
avails himself of the motive which he puts forth to cover his precipitation. 
Nevertheless, he thinks the said brigadier-general ought to be retained in the 
.'service of his majesty, with an annual pension of two thousand dollars, 
which he had already proposed in his confidential dispatch. No. 46, that he 
may communicate anything affecting the interest of the province, and may 
dissuade the Kentuckians from any evil designs against it. Miro further 
recommended a similar pension to Sebastian, "because I think it proper to 
treat this individual, who will be able to enlighten me on the conduct of 
■Wilkinson, and on what we have to expect from the plans of the general." 
Thus, the code of corruption was complied with to its most refined details. 
A spy was set to watch a spy, while both consented to play the part of dis- 
sembling conspirators against the Government toward which they were 
openly professing allegiance, thus bartering honor and good faith for Span- 
ish gold. 

A hiatus of four years of comparative quiet follows this subsidence of 
active intrigue and correspondence, at the end of which time renewed efforts 
were inaugurated with a boldness of conception and plan which seems in 
strange contrast with the desperation of hope and hazard on which they 
were based. In the midst of these last intrigues, with discomfiture to the 
conspirators, came the intelligence of the treaty between the United States 
and Spain, signed at Madrid, on the 20th of October, 1795.^ 

I Monette's History of the Mississippi Vallej' 



446 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The principal agreed conditions of the treaty, which related to Louisiana 
were as follows : 

The second article stipulates that the future boundary between the United 
States and the Floridas shall be the thirty-first parallel of north latitude. 

The third article, that each party, respectively, shall appoint one commis- 
sioner and one surveyor, and proceed thence to run and mark the said 
southern boundary of the United States. 

The fourth article, that the middle of the Mississippi river shall be the 
western boundary of the United States, from its source to the intersection of 
the said line of demarcation. The king of Spain also negotiates that the 
Avhole width of said river, from its source to the sea, shall be free to the peo- 
ple of the United States. 

The fifth article, that each party shall require and enforce peace and neu- 
trality among the Indian tribes inhabiting their respective territories. 

The king of Spain stipulates and agrees further to permit the people of 
the United States, for the term of three years, to use the port of New Orleans 
as a place of deposit for their produce and merchandise, to be removed at 
the end of the time named. 

1 Although Spain suspended her restrictions upon the river trade after 
this treaty had been ratified, it was quite apparent that the king never 
intended to surrender the territory east of the Mississippi, and north of 
latitude thirty-one, provided any contingency should enable him to hold 
possession. He had been compelled, by the pressure of political embar- 
rassment, both in Europe and in America, to yield a reluctant assent to the 
treaty, as the only means by which he could preserve the province of Louis- 
iana from invasion, and conciliate the hostile feelings of the Western people 
of the United States. Spain, incited by France, had been upon the verge 
of a war with Great Britain, and already the British authorities in Canada 
had planned an invasion of Upper Louisiana, by way of the lakes and the 
Illinois river, whenever hostilities should be formally proclaimed. To pre- 
vent this invasion was an object to be gained by the treaty of Madrid, which 
would put the neutral territory of a friendly power in the path of invaders. 

While the negotiations had been carried on between Spain and the LTnited 
States, Baron de Carondelet had been striving to secure success to his favor- 
ite plan of separating the West from the rest of the Union. His chief agent, 
Power, had informed him that the same influential individuals in Kentucky, 
who had been in secret correspondence with Governor Miro, such as Wil~ 
kinson, Innes, Murray, Nicholas, etc., were disposed to renew their former 
relations with the Spanish Government, and that some of them would be 
ready to meet at the mouth of the Ohio any officer of rank that should 
be sent to them. In consequence of this communication, Carondelet chose 
for this delicate mission the governor of Natchez, Gayoso de Lemos, who 
proceeded to New Madrid, whence he despatched Power to make the pre- 

I Monette's History of the Mississippi Valley. 



POWER SUBMITS PROPOSALS. 447 

Jiminary arrangements for the interview with Sebastian, Innes, and their 
'other associates. Power met Sebastian at Red Banks, near New Madrid. 
This individual told the Spanish emissary that Innes had been prevented by 
some family concerns from leaving home; that, as the courts of Kentucky' 
Were then in session, the absence of Nicholas, a lawyer in great practice, 
would excite suspicion ; and that Murray, ^ having lately become an habitual 
drunkard, was unfit for any kind of business, and could not be trusted. 
This was a great disappointment for Power; but Sebastian went down with 
»him to meet Gayoso, who, in the meantime, had employed the men of his 
;escort in erecting a small stockade fort on the right bank of the river, oppo- 
site the mouth of the Ohio, in order to cause it to be believed that the con- 
struction of this fortification had been the object of his journey. Sebastian 
'declared to Gayoso that he was authorized to treat in the name of Innes 
land Nicholas, but seems to have said nothing about Wilkinson. Gayoso 
"proposed to him that they should together visit the Baron de Carondelet. 
This was assented to, and Power, Sebastian, and Gayoso departed for New 
Orleans, where they arrived early in January, 1796. In the beginning of 
the spring, Sebastian and Power sailed together for Philadelphia, no doubt 
ton a mission for the Spanish governor. Power soon returned to Kentucky, 
.and submitted to those whom he expected to seduce, the following docu- 
fment: 

2 " j^ig excellency, the Baron de Carondelet, commander-in-chief and gov- 
ernor of his Catholic majesty's provinces of West Florida and Louisiana, 
having communications of importance, embracing the interests of said prov- 
inces, and at the same time deeply affecting those of Kentucky and of the 
i Western country in general, to make to its inhabitants, through the medium 
of the influential characters in this country; and judging it, in the present 
(uncertain and critical attitude of politics, highly imprudent and dangerous 
' to lay them on paper, has expressly commissioned and authorized me to sub- 
• mit the following proposals to the consideration of Messrs. Sebastian, Nich- 
'olas, Innes, and Murray, and also of such other gentlemen as may be 
pointed out by them, and to receive from them their sentiments and deter- 
' minations on the subject. 

" First — The above-mentioned gentlemen are to exert all their influence 

in impressing, on the minds of the inhabitants of the Western country, a 

conviction of the necessity of their withdrawing and separating themselves 

from the Federal Union, and forming an independent government wholly 

unconnected with that of the Atlantic States. To prepare and dispose the 

c people for such an event, it will be necessary that the most popular and elo- 

'■ quent writers in this State should, in well-timed publications, expose, in the 

most striking point of view, the inconveniences and disadvantages that a 

' longer connection with, and dependence on, the Atlantic States, must inev- 

1 Martin's History, Vol. II., p. 126. 

2 Spanish Archives. Gayarre's History of Louisiana, p. 359. ~ 



II 



448 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

itably draw upon them; and the great and innumerable difificulties in which 
they will probably be entangled, if they do not speedily secede from the 
Union. The benefits they will certainly reap from a secession ought to be 
pointed out in the most forcible and powerful manner, and the danger of 
permitting the Federal troops to take possession of the posts on the Missis- 
sippi, and thus forming a cordon of fortified places around them, must be 
particularly expatiated upon. In consideration of the gentlemen devoting 
their time and talents to this object, his excellency, the Baron de Carondelet, 
will appropriate the sum of one hundred thousand dollars to their use, which 
shall be paid in drafts on the royal treasury at New Orleans, or, if more 
convenient, shall be conveyed, at the expense of his Catholic majesty, into 
this country, and held at their disposal. Moreover, should such persons as 
shall be instrumental in promoting the views of his Catholic majesty hold 
any public employment, and in consequence of taking an active part in en- 
deavoring to effect a secession shall lose their employments, a compensation, 
equal at least to the emoluments of their respective offices, shall be made to 
them by his Catholic majesty, let their efforts be crowned with success, or 
terminate in disappointment. 

"Second^ — Immediately after the declaration of independence. Fort Mas- 
sac (opposite Paducah) shall be taken possession of by the troops of the 
new government, which shall be furnished by his Catholic majesty, without 
loss of time, with twenty field pieces, with their carriages and every neces- 
sary appendage, including powder, balls, etc., together with a number of 
small arms and ammunition sufficient to equip the troops that it shall be 
necessary to raise, the whole to be transported at his expense to the already- 
mentioned Fort Massac. His Catholic majesty will further supply the sum 
of one huadred thousand dollars for the raising and maintaining of said 
troops, which sum shall also be conveyed to and delivered at Fort Massac. 

"Third — The northern boundary of his Catholic majesty's provinces of 
East and West Florida shall be designated by a line commencing on the 
Mississippi, at the mouth of the river Yazoo, extending due west to the river 
Confederation, or Tombigbee." 

To facilitate acceptance of these tempting offers. Power, who had several 
interviews with Wilkinson, delivered to the latter ten thousand dollars, 
which had been carried up the Mississippi and Ohio, concealed in barrels of 
sugar and bags of coffee. Wilkinson had just been appointed major-general, 
in the place of Wayne, recently deceased, and Power was instructed to as- 
certain the force and temper of the army under his command, and report to 
Carondelet. The Spanish governor made an appeal, through Power, to the 
ambition, as well as cupidity, of this dangerous American Catiline in the 
following language: ^"The Western people are dissatisfied with the excise 
tax on whisky ; Spain and France are irritated at the late treaty, which has 
bound so closely together the United States and England ; the army is de- 

I Martin's History of Louisiana, Vol. II., p. 145. 



K 



THE PROJECT GIVEN UP. 449 



v'Oted to their talented and brilliant commander; it requires but firmness 
ind resolution on your part to render the Western people free and happy. 
Can a man of your superior genius prefer a subordinate and contracted 
.position as the commander of the small and insignificant army of the United 
[States, to the glory of being the founder of an empire, the liberator of so 
many millions of his countrymen — the Washington of the West? Is not 
this splendid achievement to be easily accomplished? Have you not the 
iconfidence of your fellow-citizens, and principally of the Kentucky volun- 
iteers ? Would not the people, at the slightest movement on your part, hail 
|.you as the chief of the new republic? Would not your reputation alone 
liaise you an army which France and Spain would enable you to pay? The 
eyes of the world are fixed upon you. Be bold and prompt. Do not hesi- 
tate to grasp the golden opportunity of acquiring wealth, honors, and im- 
mortal fame." 

, But all these allurements failed to produce their expected effects. Time, 
[(Washington's administration, and a concourse of favorable circumstances 
had consolidated the Union; and Wilkinson and his associates, whatever 
might have been their secret aspirations, were too sagacious not to see what 
ialmost insuperable obstacles existed between the conception and execution 
;of such dangerous schemes. Therefore, on his return to New Orleans, Power 
[■made to his Spanish employer an unfavorable report on what he had ob- 
served. Whatever might have been, at any previous time, the disposition 
of the people of Kentucky, they were now restfully satisfied with the Gen- 
eral Government. Nor do these later disclosures impeach the loyalty and 
.good faith of any Kentuckian, save Wilkinson and Sebastian. 
I We here close this dramatic episode of several and varied scenic repre- 
!'sentations of American history, throughout which Kentucky was made to 
1 play a part not less conspicuous and interesting than that of Spain herself. 
That our pioneer fathers held in their hands and at their disposal the future 
destiny of the United States, as far as the transmontane territory was in- 
volved, there can be little doubt. Had Kentucky withdrawn from the Union 
and set up an independent sovereignty at the time of the formation of the 
Federal Constitution, it is most probable that she would have carried with her 
■ all the territory north and south of her, and west of the Alleghanies. The 
• General Government was then too embarrassed and enfeebled with the antag- 
onisms of sentiment and policy among States and statesmen, with reference to 
the questions of limitation of sovereignty, Federal and state, to have offered 
an adequate resistance to a formidable movement toward separation and in- 
dependency. Beneath all the irritation and complaint of the Kentuckians, 
there was enough of latent conservative good sense, and love of country 
and kind, to restrain them from the rash venture. Besides, there is little 
doubt but that the almost passionate affection of the great mass of the Ken- 
tuckians for the old mother Commonwealth, Virginia, had very much to do 
with her adherence to the Union, under the artful and insidious temptations 

29 



450 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

held out by foreign suitors. For two generations, the admiration and lo ■ 
of Virginia by her wandering children of the West was something beautif, 
and touching, and was more nearly akin to veneration than to patriotisn 
When Virginia, therefore, entered the Federal Union, filial Kentucky, lil: 
Ruth to Naomi, was ready to say: "Whither thou goest, I will go, ai 
where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and tlij 
God my God." I 

Some interesting reminiscences followed the close of these dramatic pr 
ceedings. „ 

1 In 1811, General Wilkinson was tried before a court-martial assemblel 
at Frederickstown, under specification of receiving pensions from Spanis 
officers and agents concerned in the provincial government of Louisiana, ar 
undertook his own defense, pleading not guilty. After a protracted tri; 
and voluminous proceedings, conducted for the accused with marked abili: 
and spirit, the court decided him "not guilty." As in the case of Aarc 
Burr, this trial shows how difficult it is oftentimes, even with the cumulati'] 
testimony of years and the efforts of adroit counsel, to convict of treaso 
or other political offenses, especially when the act has been done in syr 
pathy with a sustaining current of popular sentiment. Wilkinson's speec 
in his own defense was a very masterly and adroit effort. 

In the debates of the constitutional convention of 1849, ^^^ ^^'^^ 
palliates the action of Sebastian in going to New Orleans for the purpose ( 
negotiating with Carondelet, by asserting that he went under written con 
mission signed by Messrs. Nicholas, Innes, and Murray, and that there w; 
another similar, signed by nearly one hundred other good citizens of Ke 
tucky, urging the mission. Hardin gave the text of this treaty as negl 
tiated, but which was superseded by the one made by the Governments < 
Spain and the United States, and insisted that it was more liberal in i 
terms for the people of the West than the one adopted. Of course, I1 
could not defend the course of Sebastian in accepting a pension from Spai 

2 In the inquiry into the conduct of Judge Innes, then judge of the Unit< 
States District Court in Kentucky, before Congress, a copy of the record ( 
Sebastian's trial by the Kentucky Legislature was sent to be used as i 
exhibit against Innes ; and from this we copy the joint answer of Nichol 
and Innes, as made and sent to Baron Carondelet's proposition, throuj 
Thomas Power, for the severance of Kentucky from the Union : 

"Sir: We have seen the communication made to you by Mr. Sebastia; 
In answer thereto, we declare unequivocally that we will not be concerne< 
directly or indirectly, in any attempt that may be made to separate tl 
Western country from the United States; that whatever part we may at ar 
time be induced to take in the politics of our country, her welfare will 1 
our only inducement, and that we will never receive any pecuniary or oth' 
reward for any personal exertions made by us to promote that welfare.' 

I Wilkinson's Memoirs. 2 American State Papers, Vol. XX., p. 9^9- 



LETTER FROM PRESIDENT MADISON. 45 I 

1 Hon. John Brown, in his testimony on the trial of Sebastian, disclaimed 

iiy knowledge of a pension from the Spanish Government to Sebastian or 

TV one else, and declared that, so far as he had received any information 

)Out the matters in issue in the trial, he had given the same to the secre- 

; ry of state, for the use of the president of the United States. Also, he 

declared substantially that, some time after, when Genet, the French com- 

' lissioner, informed the deponent that he had in contemplation to raise an 

rmy mainly in Kentucky, for the conquest of Louisiana, he learned that 

lie of the heads of departments was fully advised of this. He had no per- 

[onal knowledge of Genet's issuing commissions or enlisting men, but 

hceived letters and communications in regard to these matters, the informa- 

■'on in which he promptly gave to the secretary of state for the use of the 

resident. There is no evidence to show that he was governed by any 

i ther than disinterested and patriotic motives. 

; We copy here a letter of President Madison to Mann Butler, Esq., as 
[jublished in the appendix to the second edition of his history, vindicating 
ilr. Brown: 

"MoNTPELiER, October ii, 1834. — Dear Sir: I have received your letter 
f the 2 1 St ult., in which you wish to obtain my recollection of what passed 
etween Mr. Brown and me in 1788, on the overtures of Gardoqui, that if 
pie people of Kentucky would erect themselves into an independent State, 
i^nd appoint a proper person to negotiate with him, he had authority for that 
iiurpose, and would enter into an arrangement with them for the exportation 
';f their produce to New Orleans. 

" My recollection, with which reference to my manuscript papers accords, 
l^.'aves no doubt that the overture was communicated to me by Mr. Brown. 
plor can I doubt that, as stated by him, I expressed the opinion and appre- 
hension that a knowledge of it in Kentucky might, in the excitement there, 
pe mischievously employed. This view of the subject evidently resulted 
rem the natural and known impatience of the people on the waters of the 
I Mississippi, for a market for the products of their exuberant soil; from the 
distrust of the Federal policy, produced by the project for surrendering the 
p se of that river for a term of years, and from a coincidence of the overt- 
! re in point of time, with the plan on foot for consolidating the Union by 
frming it with new powers, an object, to embarrass and defeat which, the 
ismembering aims of Spain would not fail to make the most tempting sacri- 
ces, and to spare no intrigues. 
"I owe it to Mr. Brown, with whom I was in intimate friendship when 
^■e were associated in public life, to observe, that I always regarded him, 
■ .'hile steadily attentive to the interests of his constituents, as duly impressed 
'ith the importance of the Union, and anxious for its prosperity. I pray 
ou to accept with my respects my cordial salutations. 

(Signed) "James Madison. 

''Mann Butler, Esgy 



452 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The verdict of public sentiment being that Judge Muter was disqualifie: 
from age and feebleness, for discharging the duties of judge of the Court o 
Appeals, a resolution was introduced into the House of Representatives t\ 
pressive of the fact. Deeply affected, he requested their withdrawal, au 
intimated his intention to resign. The withdrawal was made, and the maj 
nanimous and generous old man realized his intimation, in a letter addressi; 
to the governor, on the 9th of December, tendering his resignation. TH| 
act of patriotic devotion is one that demands a pause of the pen, while t'a 
meed of praise is offered for the magnanimity of a sacrifice but too iv 
men, in like conditions, would have made. In poverty, the venerable jur i 
and servant of the people, who had worn out the energies of life in tii 
faithful discharge of public duties, resigned incontestable claims on the pu; 
lie treasury, thus throwing himself on the justice and generosity of tli 
country at a period when the future opened up to him no other source >; 
support. A pension was granted him by legislative act; but at thesuccee: 
ing session, the members, deeming this an objectionable precedent, passe 
an act over the governor's veto, repealing the first. The vacancy create 
by the resignation of Judge Muter was filled by the appointment of Thom; 
Todd to the chief-justiceship. 

At this period Henry Clay, the most gifted of American statesmen ai; 
orators, became actively prominent before the public in a political and pri 
fessional career of peerless brilliancy and power. 1 Mr. Clay was born 
the 1 2th of April, 1777, in Hanover county, Virginia. His father was 
Baptist clergyman, of respectable note. He died in the fifth year of h 
son's age, leaving the future care of him to his mother. She appears : 
have been a woman of unusual worth, of marked intelligence, and masc, 
hne force of character. Though left with a large family to care for, 
many a noble matron has been called to do, she managed the little estate U 
with such prudence, economy, and energy, as to rear her large family 
comfort, and to afford the opportunities for her sons to assume stations ( 
respectability and honor in life. The memory of her virtues and affectic 
was ever after cherished with sacred regard by the Great Commoner. 

The youthful years of Mr. Clay were spent in disciplinary experienC: 
which, if it did not subject him to any ordeal of actual privation and wan 
yet admitted little opportunity for the temptations which allure and destrc 
the better manhood of so many young men. His sphere in boyhood w; 
that of the workingman, but denied many of the facilities provided for tl 
education and improvement of the workingman of to-day. It is most prol 
able that this identification of his birth and early life with the great mdu 
trial masses, and this common experience which he shared with them, ha 
a potential influence in establishing that sympathy toward the people whic 
characterized him throughout his public career. For love to both races, r 
was among the first and boldest of the Southern born to advocate the emai 

I Collins, Vol. 11 , p. 205-8. 



HENRY CLAY S YOUTH. 453 

nation of slaves; and in this sentiment of policy and humanity, no man 
as more consistent during life. His measures of internal improvement, 
modified tariff reform, and of other policies embraced in his American 
,stem, at the time more plausible and patriotic than they would be now, 
ere meant to diffuse the benefits of government to the whole people. In 
[is Mr. Clay's individuality was most marked. 

Mr. Clay's opportunities for education were after the country methods 
■ the day for the poor. The extent of his attainments in literature con- 
'sted of the common elements taught in a country school of the humblest 
rigin. Even these slender advantages were but sparingly enjoyed, as he 
as compelled by straightened circumstances to devote considerable time 
) manual labor. It is most probable that this very circumstance of early 
imiliarity with the stern realities of life contributed to give to his mind 
Sat strong practical bias, which has subsequently distinguished his career 
's a statesman; while there can be no doubt that the demands thus made 
'pen his energies tended to a quick development of that unyielding strength 
• hi character which bears down all opposition, and stamps him as one of 
'he most potential spirits of the age. 

He was, at the age of fourteen, employed in the office of the clerk of 

|*he high court of chancery, at Richmond, Virginia. Won by his amiable 

I leportment, uniform habits of industry, and striking displays of intelligence, 

[Chancellor Wythe honored him first with his friendship, and afterward em- 

)loyed him as an amanuensis. Here he first conceived the idea of studying 

aw. 

In the year 1796, he went to reside with Robert Brooke, Esq., attorney- 
general of Virginia. While in the family of this gentleman, his opportuni- 
^ :ies for acquiring a knowledge of the profession to which he had determined 
':o devote his life were greatly improved, and he appears to have cultivated 
:hem with exemplary assiduity. The year 1797 seems to have been devoted 
'oy Mr. Clay exclusively to the study of his profession. It is worthy of re- 
''mark that this was the first year in which his necessities permitted him to 
pursue an uninterrupted system of study ; and so eagerly did he avail him- 
self of the privilege, and such was the ardor and vivacity of his mind, that 
'near the close of the year he obtained from the Virginia Court of Appeals 
: a license to practice. Of course, the acquisitions made in the science of 
law, in the course of these irregular and broken efforts to master that intri- 
cate and complex system, were somewhat desultory and crude; and it is not 
' the least striking evidence of the wonderful resources of Mr. Clay's genius, 
j' that he was enabled, notwithstanding these disadvantages, to assume so early 
in life a high rank in his profession, at a bar distinguished for the number, 
ability, and profound erudition of its members. 

Upon obtaining his license, Mr. Clay, then in the twenty-first year of 
his age, came to Lexington, Kentucky. He did not, however, immediately 
enter upon the duties of his profession, but spent several months in review- 



454 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ing his legal studies, and forming an acquaintance with the people. Hj 
appearance at this period is represented to have been that of a man in feebl 
health. Delicate in his person, slow and languid in all his movements, Y 
whole air and bearing were pervaded by a lassitude, which gave no promi> 
of that untiring energy which has since so singularly marked his extraorc 
nary history. 

When Mr. Clay entered upon the duties of his profession, the Lexingtcl 
bar was noted for talent, numbering among its members some of the fir 
lawyers that have best adorned the legal profession in America. He coml 
menced the practice under circumstances somewhat discouraging, and, J 
appears from his own statement, with very moderate expectations. Hi 
earliest efforts, however, were attended with complete success. His reput^ 
tion spread rapidly, and, to use his own language, he " immediately rushet 
into a lucrative practice." This unusual spectacle, so rare in the legal pro' 
fession, is to be ascribed mainly to Mr. Clay's skill as an advocate. Giftet 
by nature with oratorical genius of a high order, his very youth increase: 
that potent fascination which his splendid elocution and passionate el( 
quence threw over the public mind, and led the imagination a willing captivi 
to its power. It was in the conduct of criminal causes, especially, thj 
he achieved his greatest triumphs. The latitude customary and allowabli 
to an advocate in the defense of his client, the surpassing interest of th 
questions at issue, presented an occasion and a field which never failed t 
elicit a blaze of genius, before which the public stood dazzled and fascinated 

When Mr. Clay first arrived in Kentucky, the contest between the ol 
Federal and Democratic parties was violent and bitter. Any one acquainte 
with the ardent character of the Kentuckians at that period will not requir: 
to be told that neutrality in politics, even had Mr. Clay been disposed t 
pursue that equivocal line of conduct, was for him utterly out of the ques' 
tion, and would not have been tolerated for a moment. He accordingb 
united himself with the Jeffersonian or Democratic party, with whose prin 
ciples his own sentiments entirely harmonized. He was prominent at ; 
very early day among those who denounced the most obnoxious measure 
of the Adams administration, and was especially conspicuous for the energy 
eloquence, and efficiency with which he opposed the alien and seditioi 
laws. 

In 1803, he was elected to represent the county of Fayette in the nios 
numerous branch of the State Legislature. He was re-elected to that bod) 
at every session until 1806. The impression made upon his associates mus 
have been of the most favorable character, since, in the latter year, he wa; 
elected to the Senate of the United States, to serve out the unexpired ternr 
of General Adair. He was elected for one session only. 

During this session, Mr. Clay, as a member of the Senate, had occasion 
to investigate the extent of the power of Congress to promote internal im 
provements, and the result of his examination was a full conviction that the 



CLAY S CAREER. 455 

biect was clearly within the competency of the General Government, 
i.iese views he never after changed; and, profoundly impressed with the 

ilicy of promoting such works, he at the same session gave his cordial 
Ipport to several measures of that character. 

L At the close of the session, Mr. Clay returned to Kentucky and resumed 
le practice of his profession. At the ensuing election, in August, he was 
I turned as the representative from Fayette to the Legislature. When the 
I igislature assembled, he was elected speaker of the House. In this station, 
r: was distinguished for the zeal, energy, and decision with which he dis- 
Larged its duties. He continued a member of the Legislature until 1809, 
[hen he tendered his resignation, and was elected to the Senate of the 
! nited States for two years, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resigna- 
jon of Mr. Thruston. During his continuance in the Legislature, he had 
p-oduced the deepest impression of his abilities, and won the warm regard 

id full confidence of his associates. How completely he had established 
l,mself in the favorable opinion of that body may be inferred from the fact 
!,iat he was elected to the office of speaker by a vote of two-thirds. He 
[,:tired accompanied by expressions of ardent admiration for his talents, high 
, iteem for his services, and sincere regret for his loss. 

i The principal matters which came before the Senate during Mr. Clay's 
L'cond term of service related to the policy of encouraging domestic manu- 
iictures, the law to reduce into possession and establish the authority of the 
J^nited States over the territory between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers, 
[Dmprehending the present States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and 
[,ie question of a re-charter of the Bank of the United States. In the dis- 
vussions which arose on each of these questions, Mr. Clay bore a conspicuous 
, art, fully sustaining the high reputation for ability with which he entered 
le Senate. 

, His speech in favor of giving the preference to articles of American 
rowth and manufacture, in providing supplies for the army and navy, was 
emarkable as being the first occasion in which he developed to the national 
legislature those peculiar views in reference to the policy of building up a 
ystem of home industry which he had at an earlier day sought to impress on 
he legislation of Kentucky. Up to this period, this subject, which has since, 
nd mainly through the instrumentality of Mr. Clay, become so prominent 
.nd exciting a question in American politics, had attracted little or no atten- 
ion; and when the principle of protection and encouragement was at this 
lession brought forward for the first time, and attempted to be embodied in 
egislative enactments, the resistance it encountered was violent, bitter, and 
ietermined. 

His speech delivered at the same session on the "line of the Rio Per- 
iido," in which he undertook to investigate and trace the title of the United 
States to the territory which comprises the present States of Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Florida, is a masterpiece of forensic oratory, distinguished for 



456 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the clearness of its statements and invincible cogency of its reasoning. T^,; 
qualities of leadership were instinctively asserted, and conceded for lifetime, 

At the session of 1810-11, the question of a re-charter of the Bank o" 
the United States was brought before the Senate, and became the subject of n 
debate noted in our congressional history for its intemperate violence and 
splendid displays of eloquence. On this occasion, Mr. Clay was found op- 
posed to the re-charter of the bank, and maintained his views in a speech 
great ingenuity and power. He afterward, in 1816, saw reason to changi; 
his opinions, and since that time was firm in the support he rendered td 
such institution. The explanation of this alteration of opinion is in th( 
peculiar views held by American statesmen at that day in reference to tht; 
construction of the Constitution. The vital subject of difference in prin 
ciple between the old Federal and Democratic parties related to the inter 
pretation of that instrument. 

In 1808, Mr. Madison succeeded Mr. Jefferson to the presidency. Gen 
eral Charles Scott was elected governor of Kentucky, Gabriel Slaughter 
lieutenant-governor, and Jesse Bledsoe appointed secretary of state. 

From the governor's message to the General Assembly, we gather th< 
following resume : ^ Reference is made to the existing crisis as likely to cal 
out the energies of the country, alluding to the foreign relations of th( 
United States. Then it is suggested that the way to a.void force is to be ir 
a situation to repel it. Represents the militia on parade days as appearing 
frequently with guns without locks; and, worse than this, with a mer(| 
apology for weapons. He then recommends the manufacture of aVms amonj 
ourselves ; and adverts to the requisition of fifty-five hundred, made by thej 
president from this State, as her quota of one hundred thousand militia or 
dered to be held in readiness. Home manufactures, the standing topic, i: 
touched on and recommended. 

He adds: "It will be with you, gentlemen, to say whether from the 
present posture of our affairs and the privations I have noticed, it will nol| 
be just and politic to give debtors some respite by prolonging the time foi 
replevy. The revenue is recommended to attention. The Senate is tolc 
that it is expected to assist the governor in selecting proper persons to fil 
public offices." 

The foreign relations of the United States were becoming every yeai 
more strained and critical. The retaliatory laws of non-intercourse with 
Great Britain and France, in return for their continued blockade decrees, 
embargoes, and interruptions of American commerce, had kept alive a spirit 
of irritation, which was inflamed to the point almost of open rupture, by 
the attack of the English frigate Leopard on the United States war vessel 
Chesapeake. The intensity of feeling against Great Britain led all to 
become deeply engrossed in national politics. It was evident that it was 
but a question of time when this state of feeling would bring the issue of war 

I Marshall, Vol. II., p. 458. 



THE "BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE. 



457 



An important act of this period was the charter of the Bank of Kentucky 
kn 1807, with a capital of one million dollars. During the next year's ses- 
[jiion, the limitation in actions of ejectment was changed from twenty to 
(leven years, where there was actual residence, and claim under adverse 
■tntTy. This act mainly quieted litigation upon original conflicting claims, 
i^umphrey Marshall was its author. 

The census of 181 o showed Kentucky to be the seventh State in the Union 
,;n point of population, which aggregated four hundred and six thousand five 
«iundred and eleven. Of these, there were three hundred and twenty-four 
tjhousand two hundred and thirty-seven whites, seventeen hundred and 
Seventeen free colored, and eighty thousand five hundred and sixty-one 
slaves. This was an increase in ten years of eighty-four per cent. The 
iiilaves had increased over ninety-nine per cent. 

\ On the 7th of November, 181 1, the battle of Tippecanoe was fought in 
he northern part of the Territory of Indiana. General William H. Har- 
^•■ison, one of the most experienced and successful Indian fighters with 
regular troops that 'the country had produced, was in command of this mili- 
(;;ary district. Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, were the leading 
spirits to incite to Indian hostilities, under f r * 

iihe instigations of the British officials and 

liagents. Tecumseh, the Shawanee chief, 

was the great leader in the war policy of 
the tribes. For some time he had been 
strenuously engaged in forming a grand 
confederacy of all the tribes, both north 

rand south, for a concerted war on the 
whites, to exterminate them, or drive them 
eastward of the mountains again. At the 
time of the battle, he was on this mission : 

.among the Southern tribes, and, after vis- 

iiting the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and 

^Chickasaws, he crossed the Mississippi and 
pursued his route northwardly to the Des 
Moines, and thence returned to the Wabash, the prophet, els-kwau-ta-waw, 
only to witness and deplore the ruin of his brother, the Prophet, and his ibl- 
lowers. In his absence. General Harrison had forced the fighting, and at 
the doors of the wigwams of the savages. The issue was a decisive victory 

I for the whites, and a signal and sanguinary defeat for the Indians under the 

' Prophet. The army of Harrison was made up mostly of regulars, and only 
such Kentuckians as had volunteered their services were present to partici- 

' pate. Among the slain, who fell gallantly fighting in the front, were the 
distinguished Colonel Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, the prosecutor of Aaron 
Burr, and the daundess Colonel Abraham Owen, of Shelby county, both 
worthy of honorable mention in Kentucky history. 




458 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



1 Colonel Abraham Owen immigrated from Virginia in 1785, and settled 
in Shelby county, where his father established a fort near Shelbyville. His 
first military service of which we have mention was with General Wilkinson, 
in his campaign on the White and Wabash rivers, in 1791. He was lieuten- 
ant in Captain Lemon's company in St. Clair's defeat, in which engagement 
he was twice wounded. He was also with Colonel Hardin in the campaign 
and action with the Indians on White river, in which the latter were routed. 
He commanded the first company raised in Shelby county, and was soon 
promoted to be a major, and then a colonel, taking an active part in defense 
at home and in campaigns abroad. He served with distinction as a spy in 
Wayne's campaign. No citizen rendered more willing and valued services 
as a neighbor and friend, and none was more respected and beloved among 
the people with whom he dwelt. He filled several local offices creditably, and 
soon after Wayne's victory was overwhelmingly elected to the Legislature. 

In 1799, he was elected from his county a member of the convention to 
frame the second Constitution of the State, and shortly before his death, he 
was a senator in the General Assembly of Kentucky. No man in the 
county had a stronger hold on the affections of the people. 

In 181 1, he was the first to join General Harrison at Vincennes to resist 
the threatened hostilities by Tecumseh and the Prophet. He was chosen to 
be an aid-de-camp to Harrison, and fell at the side of his chief in the rage 
and midst of battle, bravely contributing to the victory he was destined not 
to witness. His death caused profound grief throughout the army and in 
Kentucky, where he was so well known. As a soldier, he was fearlessly 
brave, self-possessed, and firm ; as a citizen, he was amiable and gentle- 
manly. He died thus, at the age of forty-two years, in the very prime of 
manhood, leaving a family of sons and daughters, who settled at Newcastle, 
where a number of the descendants yet live. Two of his sons, Colonel 

Clark and James Owen, were pioneer settlers 

Texas, and participants in the Texas war 

for independence. Colonel Clark Owen, 

an officer in a Texas regiment, was slain 

in the famous battle of Shiloh, in the 

late civil war. It is a notable fact that 

father and son, with chivalric spirit. 

voluntarily left endeared homes and 

families and fortunes, and became 

martyrs to a sense of duty they felt that 

they owed to their country and cause. 

Posterity can not forget such deeds ot 

devotion, nor to venerate the memory 

of men deserving to be ranked among 

COLONEL JOSEPH HAMILTON DAVEiss. the heroes of our history. v^ 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 672. 




COLONEL DAVEISS' LIFE. 459 

iQf Colonel Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, much has already been said, in 
[connection with his prosecution of Burr. He, too, was brought out from 
ji Virginia at the age of five by his parents, who settled near Danville in 1779. 
jrAn incident is related of the mother on the trip through the wilderness, 
i' which may somewhat forecast the character of the son: In crossing the 
if Cumberland river, Mrs. Daveiss was thrown from a spirited horse which 
lishe was riding and her arm broken. The party only halted long enough to 

bind up the limb with what rude skill they had, then pursued their route, 
- Mrs. Daveiss again riding a horse and carrying her child in her lap before 

her. Young Daveiss passed through the usual privations of pioneer life, 
(and received such educational advantages as the country afforded, and which 

■ he improved to his credit, evincing unusual talent. When but eighteen 
;' years of age, he volunteered to join Major Adair's command, to guard the 

transportation of provisions to the forts in Northern Ohio, in 1792. After 

I his return from this service, he entered upon the study of law in the office 

i'of Judge George Nicholas, then considered the first lawyer in Kentucky. 

iHe entered a class of students composed of Isham Talbott, Jesse Bledsoe, 

William Garrard, Felix Grundy, Wihiam B. Blackburn, John Pope, William 

Stewart, and Thomas Dye Owings, all of whom became distinguished at the 

■ bar and in the public history of the country. 

b Daveiss pursued a course that rarely fails to develop the man of intellect- 
•ual power and character. He was a laborious and indefatigable student, 
'accustomed himself to repose on a hard bed, and at regular and prompt 
'^ times, exercised by walking two or three hours a day, and sought seclusion 
in the hours of devoted study. In connection with his studies, he found 
' time to read standard works of history and literature, so that when he came 
' to the bar, his mind was richly stored with knowledge varied and profound, 
imparting a fertility and affluence to his resources, from which his fertile 
and well-trained mind drew sujiplies inexhaustible. On entering upon the 
'practice of his profession at Danville, he rapidly accumulated business in all 
' the courts on which he attended. In a few years, he removed to Frankfort, 
where he could more conveniently practice in both vState and Federal courts, 
and in 1801, he argued the celebrated case of Wilson vs. Mason in the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. He was the first Western lawyer who 
appeared as counsel in that court, and his rare learning and elocution are said 
r to have made a profound impression. 

;' In 1803, he was married to Anne Marshall, sister of the chief-justice of 
[the United States. In 1809, he removed to Lexington, where he lived un- 

■ til his death. In the courts there and at the capital, for the two intervening 
years, there were but (ew very important cases in which he was not counsel 

I' for one side. In 181 1, he volunteered to join the army of Harrison in the 
Wabash campaign, and on the 7th of November, in the battle of Tippecanoe, 
he fell in a charge against the Indians, made at his own solicitation. 

I Collins, Vol IL, p. 154. 



460 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Colonel Daveiss was a man of commanding appearance, being near six 
feet high, with an athletic physique. His bearing was grave and dignified, 
and unusually impressive. He had few equals in oratory, and as a conver- 
sationalist he was unsurpassed. Such competent judges as Judge Boyle, 
John Pope, and Samuel McKee, frequent associates at the bar, said of him 
that he was the most impressive speaker they had ever heard, and these had 
listened to Henry Clay. 

On the accession of General Harrison to the command of the North-west, 
General William Russell, of Kentucky, succeeded him in the Western ter- 
ritory. He was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1758. His father 
was General William Russell, a distinguished officer of the Revolution. He 
was reared from early boyhood on the south-western frontier of Virginia, 
and at a very early age entered the service of the State as a volunteer. In 
1774, he served on an expedition in Powell's Valley under Daniel Boone, 
and was constantly in service thereafter, acting as adjutant to Colonel Will- 
iam Campbell, at King's Mountain, Whitsell's Mill, and Guilford Court- 
house. In 1783, he removed to Kentucky and settled in Fayette county at 
a place known for nearly a century as "Russell's Cave." He was soon 
found in the service of his adopted State, serving under Generals Scott, 
Wilkinson, and Wayne in their several campaigns against the Indians, in 
which he evinced great military talent. He was appointed by President 
Madison, in 1808, colonel of a regiment in the regular army. He partici- 
pated in the battle of Tippecanoe, and when General Harrison was trans- 
ferred to the command of the army in the North-west, Colonel Russell 
succeeded him in the command of the frontiers of Indiana, Illinois, and 
Missouri. He, with Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, planned the ex- 
pedition against the Peoria Indians, which proved an entire success. He 
rendered much service in civil life, representing Fayette county in the Vir- 
ginia Legislature in 1789, and in the Kentucky Legislature thirteen sessions. 
His patriotism was life-long, and in private life his character was of the 
purest and most elevated type. He died at his home July 3, 1825, where 
his ashes still repose. 

1 At two o'clock in the morning of December 16, 181 1, was felt the first 
destructive shock of the great earthquake on the Mississippi river and its 
shores, in the vicinity of Fulton county, Kentucky, and New Madrid, Mis- 
souri; the most disruptive and extensive in its effects ever known to occur 
in the United States. It spent its greatest force in South-west Kentucky, 
North-west Tennessee, and in Missouri, opposite. 

After shaking the valley of the Mississippi to its center, and extending 
its vibrations all over the valley of the Ohio, to Pittsburgh and beyond, it 
passed the Alleghanies and their connecting mountain barriers, and died 
away along the shores of the Atlantic ocean. 2 During the continuance of 

1 Collins, Vol. II., p 282 Letter of Dr. Lewis F. Linn. 

2 Letter, dated February i, 1836, from Dr. Lewis F. Linn, United States senator from Missouri. 



THE EARTHQUAKE OF 181I. 461 

I 

khis appalling phenomenon — which commenced by distant rumbling sounds, 
^succeeded by discharges as if a thousand pieces of artillery were suddenly 
i;exploded — the earth rocked to and f 7-0 ; vast chasms opened, whence issued 
i'columns of water, sand, and coal, accompanied V)y hissing sounds, caused, 
[^perhaps, by the escape of pent-up steam; while ever and anon flashes of 
^electricity gleamed through the troubled clouds of night, rendering the dark- 
! ness doubly horrible. The current of the Mississippi was driven back upon 
i.;its source with the greatest velocity for several hours, in consequence of an 
pelevation of its bed. But this noble river was not thus to be stayed. Its 
j^accumulated waters came booming on, and, overtopping the barrier thus 
f suddenly raised, carried everything before them with resistless power. Boats, 
then floating on the surface, shot down the declivity like an arrow from a 
bow, amid roaring billows, and the wildest commotion. 

p A few days' action of its powerful current sufficed to wear away every 
('vestige of the barrier thus strangely interposed, and its waters moved on to 
the ocean. The day that succeeded this night of terror brought no solace 
I in its dawn. Shock followed shock; a dense black cloud of vapor over- 
shadowed the land, through which no struggling sunbeam found its way to 
' cheer the desponding heart of man — who, in silent communion with him- 
self, was compelled to acknowledge his weakness and dependence upon the 
everlasting God. Hills disappeared, and lakes were found in their stead; 
1' numerous lakes became elevated ground, over the surface of which vast 
\ heaps of sand were scattered in every direction ; in many places the earth 
■^ for miles was sunk below the general level of the surrounding country, 
' without being covered with water — leaving an impression in miniature of 
a catastrophe much more important in its effects, which had preceded it 
ages before. One of the lakes formed is sixty or seventy miles in length, 
and from three to twenty in breadth; in some places very shallow, in others 
' from fifty to one hundred feet deep, which is much more than the depth of 
the Mississippi river in that quarter. In sailing over its surface in a light 
" canoe, the voyager is struck with astonishment at beholding the giant trees 
of the forest standing partially exposed amid a waste of waters, branchless 
' and leafless. 

In a keel-boat moored to a small island in the Mississippi river, about 
eighteen miles below the boundary line of Kentucky and Tennessee, the 
crew was frightened almost to helplessness by the first terrible convulsion. 
This was before two o'clock in the morning of December 16, 181 1. At 
half past two o'clock a. m., another, only less terrible, shock came on — a 
shock which made a chasm in the island four feet wide and over three hun- 
dred feet long. Twenty-seven shocks, all distinct and violent, were felt and 
counted before daylight. They continued every day until the 21st of De- 
cember, with decreasing violence — indeed, they were repeated at intervals 
until in February, 181 2. The center of the violence was ascertained to be 
about Island No. 14, twenty-two miles below New Madrid, Missouri, which 




462 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

is opposite Fulton county, Kentucky, in the wide vicinity of which the traces 
of the frightful convulsion are yet frequent and marked. 

A scientific English gentleman, ^ who happened to be upon the above 
keel-boat, became cool enough to record his observations. He noticed that 
the sound which was heard at the time of every shock always preceded the 
shock at least a second, originated in one point and went off in an opposite 
direction. And so he found that the shocks came from a little northward 
of east, and proceeded to the westward. 

In the legislation of 1811-12, among others, bills were passed granting; 
lands, at ten cents per acre, to aid in building iron and salt-works in Wayne 
and Pulaski counties; assenting on the part of Kentucky to the proposed 
amendment of the United States Constitution, depriving of citzenship any 
one accepting title of nobility or honor, or receiving presents or office from 
foreign emperor, king, or prince; requiring all State and judicial officers and 
attorneys at law to take an oath against duelling, or participating in a duel, 
or negotiating a challenge; granting lotteries — one to improve the Kentucky 
river, one to repair the road from Maysville to Washington, and another to ' 
build a church on the public square at Frankfort, for the free use of all sects 
or denominations. 

The messages of Governor Shelby during the term following 181 2 bear 
grateful testimony to the general internal prosperity of the State ; severely I 
animadvert on the insincerity and vacillation of Great Britain in effecting 
overtures for peaceful negotiations, while taking advantage of the delays to j 
prosecute the war with more relentlessness, advising such measures as will 
render the militia forces most available for the demands upon Kentucky in t 
the prosecution of the war; advise amendment and reform of the revenue i 
laws; in 1814, recommend the appointment of a judge specially for the 
General Court; note the losses and delays sustained by the treasury by 
the failure of the judges to hold court at the regular terms; urge the repair 
of the penitentiary, and provision for the greater safety of the prisoners; 
that rooms be rented for the accommodation of some of the public officials, 
until the new state-house is finished, to replace the old one burned; and 
assure that the secret-service fund placed at the disposal of the governor 
remains unexpended, no occasion demanding its use. 

I John Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, pp. 199-207. 



SUMMARY OF THE EVENTS OF 1812-15. 



463 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

(War of 1812-15.) 



Governor Shelby elected for a second 
term. 
■ Congressional act to relieve Boone. 

Loses all again. 

Dies poor. 

War with England again. 

Causes. 

Orders in council and decrees. 

Once more allied with France. 

One hundred thousand soldiers called 
for by the president. 

Kentucky allotted five thousand five 
hundred. 

Ten regiments volunteer. 

Rendezvous at Cincinnati. 

News of Hull's surrender. 

The disaster. 

General James Taylor and wife. 

Hull court-martialed, and sentenced to 
be shot. 

Wasted efforts. 

All troops put under General Harri- 
son. 

Fort Wayne relieved. 

Fort Harrison attacked. 

Battle of Mississiniway. 

The country and weather impede opera- 
tions. 

Navy for Lake Erie. 

Battle of Frenchtown. 

Battle and massacre of River Raisin. 

British cruelties and bad faith. 

They pay the Indians for American 
scalps. 

Ransom of prisoners forbidden. 

Three thousand Kentuckians called for. 

Governor Shelby commands. 

Siege of Fort Meigs. 

General Green Clay, with twelve hun- 
dred men, to relieve. 

Colonel Dudley's unfortunate move and 
disaster. 



Massacres in cold blood. 

Tecumseh stops it. 

More British cruelties. 

Siege raised. 

Colonel Johnson's mounted regiment. 

Second siege of Fort Meigs. 

Major Croghan's gallant defense of Fort 
Stephenson. 

Great naval victory on Lake Erie. 

How received. 

General Harrison prepares to invade 
Canada. 

Maiden evacuated and burned. 

Pursues the retreating British. 

The victory of Thames river. 

Charges of Colonel Johnson's mounted 
regiment. 

Tecumseh slain. 

Proctor's flight. 

The battle-cry, "Remember Raisin!" 

Tecumseh slain by Colonel Dick John- 
son. 

Tribute to Governor Shelby. 

Power of the British shattered in the 
North-west. 

Indian tribes desire peace. 

General McArthur's expedition into 
Canada. 

British invasion of the South-west. 

Immense preparations. 

Twenty-five hundred Kentuckians en- 
listed for New Orleans. 

State of affairs in Louisiana. 

Friends and traitors. 

Sharp naval fight. 

General Jackson proclaims martial law. 

Address to the citizens. 

First battle with General Kean. 

Active work on the defenses. 

First attack of Packenham on the 28th. 

Second, on the 1st of January. 

The great battle and victory of the 8th. 



464 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Defeat on the right bank. 

Two hundred Kentuckians, unsupport- 
ed, driven back. 

Unjust aspersions of Patterson and Mor- 
gan. 



Prejudice that misleads Jackson. 

A court of inquiry. 

Fort St. Philip bombarded. 

The British retreat, and abandon Louis. 



In August, the favorite son of Kentucky, Isaac Shelby, was elected 
governor for the second time. Martin D. Hardin, son of Colonel John 
Hardin, treacherously murdered while on a peace mission to the Indians, 
was made the secretary of state. 

During the session of the Legislature this year, a petition was presented 
by Daniel Boone, setting forth that all his lands which he had entered in 
Kentucky had been swallowed up and lost in the intricacies of the law and 
rival claims, and that, under the circumstances, he had migrated, in 1795, 
to the Spanish province of upper Louisiana, under promise by the governor 
of a grant of ten thousand acres of land in the district of St. Charles, on the 
Missouri river, the title to which was not completed, because it had to be 
done at New Orleans. On the cession of Louisiana to the United States, 
the commissioners appointed by the latter had been compelled to declare 
his claim null and void, and now "your memorialist was left once more, at 
about the age of eighty, to be a wanderer in the world, having no spot he 
can call his own whereon to lay his bones." An account of Boone's last 
years of life we have already given. 

His last landed estate, donated by Congress, passed from his possession 
to pay a debt of reimbursement to a person in Kentucky to whom he had 
sold a tract of land there with a defective title, warranted by Boone. The 
purchaser lost his land at law, and the loss fell on Boone, taking from him 
a last time all the ground he had, "whereon to lay his bones." 

Boone asserted that his lands in Kentucky had proved an injury to him, 
according to the rules of law. This led him to abandon the country he had 
called his "Paradise," in despair, and to declare, on the west side of the 
Mississippi, that he would never recross it again. 

The interesting episode of the war of 181 2- 15 with England, though a 
topic for the history of the United States, involves also an important part 
of the history of Kentucky, whose soldiers played no inconsiderable part in 
Its stirring events. The causes which led to this were long continued and 
various. Chagrin and resentment over her loss of the American colonies 
by the war for independence seemed to rankle in the bosom of the British 
since the enforced treaty of 1783, manifested mainly for years by the stub- 
born retention of the North-west posts, and the instigation by secret in- 
trigues and bribes of the Indians to increasing hostilities against the front- 
iersmen, until the treaty at Greenville, by General Wayne, in 1795. 

But new provocations occurred. England was the leading of the allied 
powers ol Europe, in the convulsive wars of France, during the period of 
her revolution. Such had been our rapid progress in wealth and population, 



DECLARATION OF WAR WITH ENGLAND. 465 

that the United States was now second only to England of all the maritime 
powers of the world. Many English seamen sought service in American 
ships, mainly on account of higher wages. The contest upon the seas be- 
^ tween England and France was very bitter, and the former had continued 
need to recruit her navy. Under color of seizing her own citizens, she 
, enforced the claim to stop and search American ships upon the high seas. 
Going even farther than this, she repeatedly seized American citizens, on 
the plea that they were English, Scotch, or Irish. These outrages were the 
frequent occasions of complaint on the part of our Government, and of 
f negotiations for redress, often unavailing or of long and tedious delay. 
Against remonstrance, protracted and bitter, the British Government re- 
fused to abandon the practice. 

By orders in council and decrees on the part of Great Britain and France, 
. respectively, the ports of both these kingdoms and all their dependencies 
; were declared in a state of blockade. Any vessel bound to or sailing from 
■■ a French port, therefore, without first visiting an English port and obtaining 
: a license for the voyage, was made a lawful prize and subject to seizure and 
, confiscation. The same was true of any vessel sailing to or from any Eng- 
1 lish port under the French decree ; but this did not so practically affect 
;: American rights, as France was not so great a rival on the seas, and from 
^ the friendly spirit of her people. 

Both were mere paper blockades, as neither power could enforce them, 
, and hence, contrary to the law of nations. Under her high-handed and 
3 haughty orders, one thousand American vessels and their cargoes were seized 
I; and confiscated. The irritations became intolerable, while the losses to 
Americans were almost equaling the cost of war. The result was a declara- 
tion of war against England in June, 1812, by the United States Govern- 
., ment. 

I At last, circumstances forced a compliance on the part of our Government, 
|- with the stipulation of the former treaty, that it should go to war with Eng- 
land again whenever France did. America was now indirectly the ally of 
Napoleon, whose iron rule and desolating wars were the scourge of Europe. 
r The French revolution, with all its excesses and atrocities, was held in 
I aversion by the Federal party, the main strength and numbers of which 
" were in the New England States. Here the religious spirit of the old Puri- 
tan element was yet conservative, and they regarded, with plausibility, the 
; Jacobinism of France as opposed to religion, civil order, and morality. 
, Thus the intelligence and wealth of a large portion of our own countrymen, 
as a choice of evils, were willing to further endure the insults and spolia- 
tions of the British, rather than acquiesce in a war that forced them to appear 
as the associates and allies of the monster, Napoleon. Against this formi- 
dable resistance at home, the second war with England was undertaken. 
The Democratic party, remembering only the friendly aid of France in the 
k war of independence, with ardent gratitude and affection, and incredulous 

30 



466 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of the reports of misdeeds and misrule with which all Europe rang, urged 
upon the Government the necessity of a declaration of war, and, when it 
was proclaimed, hailed it with an ecstacy of joy which thrilled the country 
from the Hudson river to the Ocmulgee, and westward to the Mississippi. 
James Madison was President of the United States, and James Monroe, sec- 
retary of state. 

Especially in Kentucky was the war sentiment strong. The Western 
people, with plausible justification, looked upon the continued hostilities of 
the savages, which had so harassed them for years, as but a treacherous and 
clandestine method of warring upon us by England, while she feigned peace 
under the treaty of 1783. 

Congress had authorized the president to call out one hundred thousand 
of the militia, besides taking steps to increase the forces of the regular army. 
The portion required of Kentucky was fifty-five hundred men. The call was 
promptly and more than met. Seven thousand volunteers offered their ser- 
vices, and the Kentucky troops were organized into ten regiments. Those 
raised on the north side of the river, including the company of Captain 
William Kerley from the south side, four regiments under the command of 
Colonels Scott, Lewis, Allen, and Wells, were ordered to rendezvous at 
Georgetown, with General John Payne in chief command, which they did, 
two thousand in number. 

On the 19th of August, they marched for Cincinnati, on their way to join 
the army of General Hull, who, from his base at Detroit, had recently in- 
vaded Canada, and was expected soon to be in possession of Maiden. On 
crossing the Ohio river, the first advices reached the army there of the hu- 
miliating and disgraceful surrender of General Hull and the United States 
army under his command, with the fort at Detroit and all the munitions of 
war which were in that portion of the North-west, to General Brock, with a 
force of British, Canadians, and Indians not much more than one-half his 
own. News of this event struck the country with the force of a thunderbolt 
from an unclouded sky. After a campaign of some months, and a demon- 
stration on Fort Maiden, which lay almost at his mercy. General Hull ex- 
hibited such a succession of blunderings and such incompetency as to forfeit 
the confidence of his officers and soldiers, and to lead them even to suspect 
treachery against the Government on his part. In the face of an inferior foe, 
he retreated to his base at Detroit, and on the British general, who seemed 
now to hold him in contempt, pursuing and assaulting him in his intrench- 
ments, against the counsels of his subordinates, and without an organized 
defense, he basely surrendered all within his command, on the summons of 
General Brock, to the British authority. Colonels McArthur and Cass, 
Major Jessup, and General James Taylor, of Kentucky, indignantly refused 
to assist in drawing up the stipulations, or in arranging the terms of surren- 
der. Officers and soldiers execrated the author of this humiliation upon 
them and their countrymen. 



GENERAL TAYLOR S PARENTS. 



467 




1 General James Taylor, the most prominent Kentuckian in this disas- 
trous affair, was born April 19, 1769, at Midway, Caroline county, Vir- 
ginia, the fifth of ten children. His father was Colonel James Taylor, an 
officer of the army of the Revolution, and his mother, ^nn Hubbard. He 
visited Kentucky in 1 793, and, pleased ' 
country and pioneer life, he settled at 
village of Newport, where he at once 
engaged in laying out the town which 
his brother. Captain Hubbard Taylor, 
had before located. In 1795, he was 
married to the widow of Major David 
Leitch, at Lexington. Colonel Tay- 
lor was the first clerk of the Campbell 
county courts. He had a fondness for 
military life, and was commissioned . 
brigadier-general of the State militia 
Governor Scott, in 1812. During the war 

just begun, he was made quartermastei and c^lnEkal jA^tb taylor. 
paymaster-general in the regular service, and served through the campaign 
with distinction. He was a man of marked energy and activity, and in 
politics an ardent Whig, and a warm personal and political friend of Henry 
Clay. He died at the age of seventy-nine years, in 1848, loved and hon- 
ored. Four children survived him — Colonel James Taylor, Mrs. Horatio 
T. Harris, and Mrs. John W. Tibbatts, of Newport, and Mrs. George T. 
Williamson, of Cincinnati. 

Mrs. Keturah Leitch Taylor, the wife of General Taylor, was a typical 
pioneer woman. Her maiden name was Moss. The sisters, Keturah, Sally, 
and Ann, aged respectively eleven, fourteen, and ten years, bade farewell 

to family and home in Virginia and, under 
the escort of their uncle. Rev. Augustus 
Eastin, and party, made the long and 
perilous journey through the wilderness 
to Kentucky, in 1784. We have before 
mentioned the massacre of another party 
of immigrants within a short distance of 
their camp, to many of the horrors of 
which the girls were eyewitnesses. They 
saw the slain and mangled bodies, and 
the scalps dangling on the bushes, after 
the savages were driven off. These im- 
pressions Mrs. Taylor very vividly re- 
membered through life, and especially a 
MRS. KETURAH LEITCH TAYLOR, scalp of beautiful golden ringlets of some 

I McAfee, pp. 82-93. 




468 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

maiden murdered. She passed the intervening years at Bryan's station 
and Leitch's station, in Campbell county, through every experience of pio- 
neer life, until her marriage with General Taylor, in 1795. She had at times 
to find refuge from Indian barbarities in Fort Washington, on the site of 
Cmcinnati, and under command of General Wilkinson. These early trials 
and hardships developed in Mrs. Taylor a character of energy, resolution, 
and strength which distinguished her life. In 1866, at the advanced age of 
ninety-three years, she died, in the midst of and lamented by her children, 
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 

The effects of the ill-omened disaster were directly to be felt by Ken- 
tucky and the North-west. The fall of Detroit broke down the main bar- 
riers between the Indian tribes of the Wabash, the Miamis, and the lake 
shore, and the aggressive British land and naval forces. 

General Hull returned, under parole, to his old residence in Massachu- 
setts, and requested an investigation, before a court-martial, of the charges 
of treason and of cowardice. The verdict was that the charge of treason 
was not proven, but that the court found him guilty of cowardice, and sen- 
tenced him to be shot to death, but recommended him to the mercy of the 
president. The following order was then issued, "The rolls of the army 
are to be no longer disgraced by having upon them the name of General 
William Hull." 

The war spirit blazed with even greater intensity in Kentucky, on this 
unfortunate opening of the first campaign of the war. They well knew that 
this success of the British would array the wily and treacherous Indians in 
allied hostility to the Americans, and greatly magnify the work of resist- 
ance. Little Turtle, the old friend of the whites, had but recently died, and 
the sway of Tecumseh was almost unbroken, and he was pronounced for 
war. 

For nearly thirty years the nation had been at peace with the outer world, 
and the unmterrupted growth of the country had made its people essentially 
pacific, commercial and agricultural. The sudden precipitancy of a state 
of war produced much of confusion, and of aimless effort and activity in 
many directions. Two thousand Kentucky volunteers assembled at Louis- 
ville, half provisioned and equipped, were marshaled under the command 
of General Hopkins against the Indian towns of Northern Illinois. His 
command fell into disorder, and returned home without accomplishing any- 
thmg. 

The residue of the State forces, excepting the command of General Rus 
sell, were placed under the orders of General Harrison, who had been foi 
some tmie governor of Indiana Territory, and who had acquired distinction 
in the management of Indian affairs, and especially by the victory of Tippe- 
canoe. All the troops operating in Ohio and Indiana from other States were 
placed under his command, and large powers of military discretion given 
him. In the latter part of August he arrived in Cincinnati, and took charge 



HARRISON HELD IN HIGH ESTEEM. 469 

of the troops assembled there, issued orders for their practice in evolutions 
and drill, and got all in readiness for the northward march. 

At Piqua, eighty miles north of Cincinnati, he learned of the investment 
of Fort Wayne by the Indians, and at once determined on the relief of the 
garrison. He sent forward as a spy a Shawanee half-blood, named Logan, 
who had been captured when a boy by General Logan, and reared to man- 
hood in his family. He was quite prominent in his tribe, a warrior of note, 
and a warm friend of the whites. He performed his work faithfully and 
successfully, and returned with valuable information. He met in the Indian 
camp some red spies, who had been sent to watch and report on the condi- 
tion of General Harrison's army, and who brought news that ^'■Kentuc was 
coming as numerous as the trees." 

The army was now pushed forward to the besieged fort, marching in 
order of battle, but only to find an empty camp. The enemy had disap- 
peared to safe retreats, to the infinite joy of the beleagured within. A vil- 
lage near the fort they had burned, as well as destroyed the crops in the 
fields adjacent. The fort was well prepared to resist a siege by Indians, as 
it had plenty of provisions and water, and about seventy men, with four 
small pieces of artillery, but would easily have surrendered to a re-enforce- 
ment of British with heavier ordnance, as was feared. The site was on the 
Maumee, just below the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers. 

One division of the army, under General Payne, was now sent to destroy 
the towns and crops of the Miamis upon the Wabash; and another, under 
Colonel Wells, to destroy those of the Potawatamies, on the Elkhart river, 
a branch of St. Joseph's. Both were successful, and without loss, for the 
Indians fled before them in every direction. 

General Winchester, an officer of the Revolution, and advanced in years, 
now arrived to supersede General Harrison in chief command, much to the 
prejudice of the American cause, and much to the chagrin of the troops, 
whose partiality for Harrison was founded on his admirable merits. This 
was soon partially remedied, for on information of all the facts at the War 
Department, General Harrison was restored to the chief command, with 
discretionary powers. 

Fort Harrison was in charge of Captain Zachary Taylor. In September, 
a body of neighboring Indians, men, women, and children, asked for ad- 
mission into the fort to hold a council, and for food. Food was sent to 
them, but entrance was refused, as Captain Taylor suspected treachery. 
They loitered near for some days, and finally set fire to one of the block- 
houses at night. At the same time, a large body of warriors who had been 
lying in ambush fired into the fort over the ruins. The garrison repulsed 
them, with severe losses, while Captain Taylor, with great presence of mind, 
pulled down a cabin, and, with the materials, barricaded the opening. The 
Indians returned to the assault, and endeavored to fire the fort at other 

I McAfee, p. 121. 



47° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY 

points, but were defeated with loss, until driven off. Captain Taylor was 
complimented for his gallantry, and soon after breveted major. He had 
but fifty men against several hundred Indians. 

Exasperated with the failure and chastisement at Fort Harrison, a party 
of these Indians made an irruption into the settlements on the Roost Fork 
of White river, and cruelly massacred over twenty of the settlers, a number 
of them women and children. They dashed out the brains of infant children 
against the trees, and the body of one delicately-conditioned woman, yet 
alive, was cut open, and her unborn infant thus brained. 

In December, a body of six hundred dragoons, under Colonel Campbell, 
was sent by General Harrison against the Indians on the south of Lake 
Michigan, who were threatening to intercept and destroy supplies going by 
way of Fort Wayne, for the left wing of the army under General Winches- 
ter, and now at Maumee Rapids. At Mississiniway, they were attacked 
before day by a large force of Indians, and a severe battle of over an hour 
was fought. The Indians were defeated and dispersed with heavy loss, 
while the loss of the whites was fifty-six killed and wounded. 

With the exception of these incidents, and of occasional skirmishing, de- 
ploying, and counter-marching, the campaign was carried on for months, 
almost barren of visible results. It had opened in the autumn, just preced- 
ing the almost invariable season of rainfall of November and December. 
Northern Ohio and Indiana were an unbroken succession of flat forest and 
plain, converted into swamps and mire in seasons, and made worse during 
winter by the alternate freezing and thawing. The levies from Western 
Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky had sent forward to Harrison's 
command ten thousand men, not more than six thousand of whom, how- 
ever, could be found in actual service at any time. The left wing of fifteen 
hundred troops was encamped at the Maumee Rapids, under General Win- 
chester, and the main body of twenty-five hundred was held by General 
Harrison at Upper Sandusky. The remainder were distributed widely at 
various points where most needed. 

It was the intention of General Harrison to concentrate the various de- 
tachments, and, by a coup de tnain, to capture Maiden, the base of operations 
of the British and their savage allies. But so impassable Avas the entire 
country to transportation of artillery, of food, and other indispensable sup- 
plies, that this aim of the campaign, with other important features, was 
broken up. ^ 

At this termination of original plans, the general addressed a letter to 
the secretary of war, showing that the construction of a naval armament on 
Lake Erie sufficient to cope with, and perhaps overcome, the English forces 
by land and water, would probably be a less expensive and more certain 
method of retrieving the losses of Hull than to attempt the same altogether 
by land. 

1 McAfee, p. 183. 



BATTLE OF FRENCHTOWN. 47 1 

I' In January, 1813, intelligence was brought to General Winchester, at the 
i' Rapids, that a force of several hundred British and Indians were depredat- 
j ing upon and threatening to destroy the settlements of Frenchtown and 
\' vicinity, on the Raisin, some forty miles from the Rapids, and eighteen 
1' from Maiden. He detached Colonels Lewis and Allen, with nearly seven 
f hundred men, to that point. Colonel Lewis, on the route, received in- 
'^ formation that Colonel Elliott, in command of Maiden, would largely re-en- 
force the Indians at the Raisin, with a view of attacking General Winchester 
I in camp at the Rapids. Dispatching this news to his superior. Colonel 
. Lewis pushed on to Frenchtown, in the hope of reaching there first. The 
' town was approached in array for battle. Captain Bland Ballard led the 
advance guard. The right was commanded by Colonel Allen, and was 
* composed of the companies of Captains McCracken, Bledsoe, and Matson ; 
^ the left, of the companies of Hamilton, Williams, and Kelly, was led by 
Major Graves; and the center, made up of the companies of Hightower, 
'' Collier, and Sebree, was commanded by Major Madison. 

The enemy, posted among the houses of the French inhabitants and the 
' picketings of their gardens, were advanced upon gallantly by Majors Graves 
and Madison, and dislodged in the face of a heavy fire. Driven back on 
■' the right, they were received by Colonel Allen with a galling fire, and forced 
f on the retreat for half a mile. Reforming behind some covering of brush 
i' and houses, they made a stand with small arms and a howitzer. The com- 
■' mands of Graves and Madison coming up on the enemy's left under shelter 
' of the woods, the action became warm and general, the enemy retreating 
' some two miles, until the darkness of night ended the contest. The Ameri- 
' can forces were of the Kentucky troops, and their losses were twelve killed 
■ and fifty-five wounded. The enemy's were put down at three times this 
' number. 1 

The news of this engagement created a deep sensation in the camp at 
the Rapids. Within eighteen miles of Maiden, it was not doubted that the 
British commander there would make a formidable effort to re-enforce the 
defeated detachment, and to capture or drive back the force of Colonel 
Lewis. At once. General Winchester marched himself at the head of a 
detachment of two hundred and fifty men, all that could be spared from the 
fort. On the day after arrival, the 21st, a place suitable for a camp was 
selected, and it was determined to fortify it the day following. Late in the 
evening, a Frenchman came from Maiden through the lines, and informed 
General Winchester that a large force of British and Indians, apparently 
three thousand, was nearly ready to march to the Raisin when he left. A 
fated incredulity prevailed, and no heed was given to this warning. Only 
Colonel Lewis and Major Madison seemed on the alert, cautioning their 
men to keep within the lines, and under cover of some houses and picketing 
they had sought. The January night was exceedingly cold, and no picket- 

1 McAfee, pp. 205-11. 



472 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

guard was placed even on the road by which the enemy must approach the 
camp. 

The night of the 21st passed quietly enough, and the reveille beat at 
daybreak ; but a few minutes after, three guns fired in quick succession gave 
signal of the enemy's approach to the sentinels. The troops had barely 
time to form before a heavy fire was opened upon them from several pieces 1 
of artillery at the distance of three hundred yards. This was quickly fol- 
lowed by a charge from the British regulars, a general fire of small arms, 
and the Indian yell on the right and left. The surprise was complete, and 
all owing to the inexcusable negligence of the night before. As soon as 
the enemy came in range, a deadly fire from Colonel Lewis' camp repulsed 
them on the left and center; but on the right, the troops which had arrived 
with Winchester, entirely unprotected, were overpowered and driven back. 
General Winchester made strenuous efforts to rally them, but without suc- 
cess. While the British drove them in front, a large body of Indians flanktd 
them on the right, and compelled a disordered retreat. Colonels Lewis and 
Allen came up, and endeavored to assist in rallying the men on the south 
side of the river, and behind some houses and garden pickets that offered 
shelter; but by this time the Indians had gained their left flank also, and a i 
woods in their rear. 

In their confusion and dismay they were soon at the mercy of the sav- 
ages, who shot and tomahawked them in cold blood, regardless of all efforts | 
to surrender. Over one hundred were butchered within a space one hun- t 
dred yards square. Colonel Allen and Captain Simpson were of the slain, 
and so was Captain Mead, of the regular army. Scores of others on the 
retreat, worn down with the deep snow and intense cold, were overtaken, j 
and tomahawked and scalped. General Winchester and Colonel Lewis, » 
with some others, were captured at a bridge within less than a mile of the ! 
village, and carried to the British lines, where Proctor commanded. Majors 
Graves and Madison held their first ground with invincible firmness, baffling 
every attempt to dislodge them. Colonel Proctor, at ten o'clock, withdrew 
his men from under their deadly fire, to await the return of the Indians in 
pursuit of the other division of the army. 

When General Winchester was brought to him as a prisoner. Colonel |l 
Proctor vehemently urged upon him to effect the immediate surrender of j 
all his army, as this was the only way by which he could prevent an indis- | 
criminate massacre of the men by the savages. Winchester did not know | 
of the successful defense of Graves and Madison; and the approach of | 
Major Overton with a flag of truce, accompanied by Colonel Proctor him- j 
self, was the first intelligence that these brave men had of the disaster to, j 
and capture of, Winchester. Most intense was their chagrin when, instead I 
of a truce to return and bury their dead. Major Overton presented an order 
from General Winchester, directing them to surrender their men prisoners j 
of war. Major Madison answered that "it was the custom of the Indians 



FIENDISH ATTACK ON THE WOUNDED. 473 

to massacre their prisoners, and that he would not agree to any terms of 
capitulation unless the safety and protection of his men were guaranteed." 
; Colonel Proctor insolently asked, "Do you mean to dictate to me, sir?" 
= "No," replied Madison, "1 mean to dictate for myself, and to sell our lives 
1 as dearly as possible, rather than be massacred in cold blood." Proctor 
'■' then stipulated that all private property should be respected, that sleds 
j» should be sent next morning to remove the sick and wounded to a safe 
h retreat near Maiden, and that in the meantime they should be protected 
f by a guard. 
f Major Madison consulted with other officers, and finding the ammunition 

• nearly exhausted, and half the original force already lost, with no chance 
1 of retreat, the terms were accepted. Before they gave up their arms the 

Indians came among them and began to plunder. Major Madison ordered 
< his men to shoot or bayonet any Indian who came within the lines, which 

restrained them and saved the unwounded prisoners, who were marched at 
> once to Maiden. Colonel Proctor informed the American officers that his 
i' own wounded must, be taken to Maiden first, but that early in the morning 
f theirs should also be removed, and that in the meantime they should be left 

under the protection of a guard. 

As the British filed off, no semblance of a guard was left, except Major 

• Reynolds and two or three interpreters. This was an ominous foreboding, 
; and gloomy apprehensions depressed the helpless wounded. The body of 
■ the Indians went with the British some six miles out, on a promise of an orgy 
L of reveling in honor of the victory, except a few stragglers who pillaged 
|f through the village at night. The sun arose next morning, but to light up 
6 the opening scene of a tragedy, the bloody atrocities of which even sur- 

• passed the horrors of the massacre of the previous day. At sunrise, some 
I two hundred savages, insanely wild with the orgies of the last twenty-four 
' hours, suddenly returned upon the unprotected town, painted black and 
I red, and with frantic yells and menaces. They began plundering the pri- 
f vate houses, and then broke into those where the wounded prisoners were 
'I lying, whom they cruelly abused and then mercilessly tomahawked to death. 

Captain Hickman was rudely dragged to the door, his brains dashed out 
' with the tomahawk, and his body thrown back into the house. The houses 
of citizens Jerome and Godfrey, in which lay most of the suffering wounded, 
' were assaulted and set on fire, and the most of the helpless inmates burned 
- to death, mingling the dying cries of agonized torture with the horrid exulta- 
tions of the British allies without. Many who were able to crawl to the 
windows, in the desperate hope of escape, were met at the openings and 
forced to yield up their lives to the ruthless tomahawk, or give themselves 
as victims to the pitiless flames. Some others who were not in these two 
' houses were seized and brained, and their mangled bodies pitched into the 
consuming fire, or left upon the streets and highways. Majors Woolfolk 
and Graves, Captain Hart, and others of lesser rank were among the vie- 



474 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tims, some of whom were murdered on the way to Maiden, Further details i 
of the incidents of the tragedy would sicken the heart. 

The fate of Captain Hart illustrated the perfidy of the British officers, f 
Captain Elliott, of the latter, had become well acquainted with him in Ken- 1 
tucky. Captain Hart, inspector general, being wounded, appealed to his , 
supposed friend to have him taken on to Maiden the evening of the battle 
uneasy at the prospect of being left to the mercy of the Indians. Captain i 
Elliott assured him on the honor of a gentleman that he would be made 
safe, and that he would send his own conveyance for him next morning. : 
Next day, after the bloody butchery of the prisoners began, Dr. Todd, sur- 
geon, was bound and taken to Stony creek, where Captain Elliott was in 
camp with some British prisoners. Dr. Todd appealed to the former to send i 
back to Frenchtown and try and save some of the wounded, especially Cap-, 
tain Hart. Elliott coldly and sneeringly replied that the Indians had by 
that time killed all the wounded they intended, and as to caring for Hart, 
that charity must begin at home, and when their own wounded were all re- 
moved, if any sleds remained, he would send them back. These are but 
incidents in the almost uniform and seemingly-designed brutality of the offi- 
cers in command of the English forces, and show conclusively, that though 
they dared not give open orders for these barbarities, yet by their passive 
permission and acquiescence, they as plainly licensed and instigated the 
savages in their perpetration. It was in their power easily to have prevented 
the revolting deeds of their Indian allies, and to have humanely saved many 
wounded and prisoners from the pitiless tomahawk ; but their conduct 
throughout shows that the savages had the silent sympathy of their ap- 
proval. 

The American army lost, in killed and massacred, two hundred and 
ninety men, and five hundred and ninety-two prisoners. Only thirty-three 
escaped to the Rapids. Of the British forces. Colonel Proctor reported 
one hundred and eighty-two killed and wounded. The Indians lost heavily, 
but there were no means of numbering their dead and wounded. Proc- 
tor crowded his prisoners in a small muddy wood-yard, in a heavy win- 
ter rain, without tents or blankets, and with scarcely fire enough to keep 
them alive. Not once did he mention the guard or sleds for the wounded, 
which he had pledged, though reminded of it by General Winchester; and 
to the solicitations for surgical aid, Captain Elliott, with a sneer, replied, 
that "the Indians were excellent surgeons." Some of the prisoners taken 
and held by the Indians were ransomed by friends or humane persons. 

The British offered a stipulated price for all scalps the Indians would 
bring in. The prices paid the Indians in ransom for the living prisoners 
were far in excess of the royalty for scalps ; hence, in a number of cases, the 
cupidity of the savages induced them to save alive the captives, rather than 
subject them to the tomahawk and scalping knife. Proctor learned of a 
number of instances of ransom, and, as if to crown his perfidious treachery 



SORROW THROUGHOUT KENTUCKY 



475 



j,th an infamy of inhumanity, issued an ox(itx forbidding individuals to ran- 

>ti any more prisoners of the Indians ; and at the same time leaving open the 
\(er of a premium for the scalps of men, women, and children, thereby seduc- 
ig the Indians to the massacre, in cold blood, of their prisoners. 

Proctor did not bury the dead, but left the bodies to be devoured by dogs 
i<.d wolves. 

[ There were many incidents of personal and special character, bearing 
[itimony to the same spirit and conduct of the British officers toward the 
i'liericans, of which we have not space for historic mention. Colonel 
• octor made his reports of the campaign and battle to the commander-in- 
rief, General Brock. Of the duplicity of his representations, some idea 
f^y be formed from the following extracts from the same : 
f "His excellency, the commander-in-chief, has the highest satisfaction in 

nouncing to the troops under his command another brilliant action 

hieved by the division of the army at Detroit, under Colonel Proctor. 
* * On this occasion, the gallantry of Colonel Proctor was most nobly 
Isplayed in his humane and unwearied exertions, ivhich succeeded in rescuing 
i' vanquished from the revenge of the Indian ivarriors.^'' 
1 For these services and unmilitary barbarities. Colonel Proctor received of 
.;S approving superiors promotion to a brigadier-generalship. 
r The report of the massacre at the river Raisin spread a pall of unmiti- 
I'ted sorrow throughout Kentucky. The slain were of her best families, 
if.d there were i^w households that did not have cause to lament the loss of 
Tidred, near or remote. When the full tidings of the bloody atrocities. 
anned and perpetrated in collusion by 

e red savages and guilty whites, went 
iroad, the sentiment of sorrow was di- 
'ded with that of burning indignation 
I'd revenge. 

■ n'he gallant old veteran, Shelby, li 
ren again elected governor, to succi^i 
i'Ott, and all thought now centered < 
I'tn. By special resolution of the Lt-^ 
lature, he was requested to take com- 

ind of a new levy of militia. He ^\as 

thorized to call out three thousand 
,-;n. On the i6th of February, (iov- 
! nor Shelby ordered this number to be 

afted and organized into four regi- 

;nts, under Colonels Boswell, Dudley, 

)x, and Caldwell, and all placed under 
^e command of General Green Clay. 

le two former rendezvoused at New- 




GENERAL GREEN GUY. 



1 McAfee, p. 246. 



476 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

port, and from there promptly pushed on toward Fort Meigs, recently bull; 
at the Rapids. 

General Green Clay was appointed to this command as well for his emi 
nent services and experiences as from military precedence. Of Welsh an- 
cestry, he was born in Virginia, in 1757, and after coming to Kentucky, ht 
settled in Madison county, where he often witnessed and participated ir 
those perils and sufferings to which its people were exposed. He was ap-, 
pointed deputy surveyor of Lincoln county in 1781, and was the first and! 
only surveyor for a considerable time in the part of Kentucky where ht 
first settled, and did nearly all of the surveying in that part of the country.. 
In 1788, he was sent as a delegate from Madison county to the Virginia! 
convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. Above^ 
twenty years' service in the Legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky afforded! 
him ample opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the means calculated' 
to promote the interests of Kentucky. As a legislator, he endeavored to 
augment the prosperity of the Commonwealth by economy in public ex- 
penditure, a multiplication of the means and institutions for education, an 
attention to the energetic organization of the militia, an equal and impartialj 
administration of laws, and particularly of the criminal jurisprudence of the* 
State. The molding influence of his mind is to be found in many of our 
early statutes. He was the author of the charter of the Bank of Kfn- 
tucky, an institution which made its mark in the early history of the State. 
He was a member of the convention of 1799, which framed our second 
constitution, and its journal gives abundant evidence of his activity as 
a member of that body. He was speaker of the Senate of Kentucky in 
1807. His thrift and enterprise, together with a remarkable acquaintance 
with the land laws of Virginia governing Kentucky titles, enabled him to 
accumulate a large estate. After a long and eventful life, he died in i8:;6. 
To his sons, Cassius M. and Brutus Clay, was imparted much of that intel- 
lectual and will power which gave great force of character and influence to 
their distinguished father. 

Early in April, information was had that Colonel Proctor was preparingj 
for an attack on and investment of Fort Meigs, where were now collected 1 
very large and important military supplies of inestimable value to the Amer- 
icans. Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, soon reached Maiden withi 
six hundred warriors to join in the campaign. On the 28th, the British and! 
their Indian allies appeared in view. Landing and mounting their artillerv 
on the opposite side of the river, at the old fort, the boats next carried thej 
Indians across to the east side, and by these Fort Meigs was invested, amid 
their war-whoops and hideous yells. The enemy's mode of attack being! 
now defined, on both sides the work of strengthening the respective positions 
was vigorously prosecuted until May ist, when the artillery duel opened 
briskly. But little execution was done, after two days' bombardment. On| 
the 3d, a concealed battery was opened on the fort from the bushes on the! 



DISASTER AT FORT MEIGS. 477 

t;ft, and on the same side of the river with Fort Meigs. This was soon 
lenced by an effective fire from the fort. 

On the 4th of May, Major Trimble reached Meigs in a barge with fifteen 
len, and brought intelHgence that General Green Clay was at Fort Defi- 
nce, with a detachment of twelve hundred Kentuckians. Captain Leslie 
^,ombs had atttempted this dangerous venture the day previous in a canoe, 
'ut was fired on by the Indians within a mile of Meigs, and driven back, 
ith most of his men killed. General Harrison at once sent orders to Clay, 
ty Captain Hamilton, to descend and land eight hundred men upon the 
rorthern shore, opposite the fort, and carry the British batteries, and spike 
|f.ie cannon, and then regain their boats and cross over. The residue of his 
orces he should land upon the south bank, and with them to fight through 
ae Indians into the fort. 

I: All was propitious for the execution of this order, but unhappily the 
.en and officers to execute it were mainly raw militia, with enthusiasm 
id courage to rashness, but of little drill and discipline. The batteries 
;ere lightly guarded, the larger part of the British troops being at the camp 
,vo miles below, and the river dividing all these from the Indians camped 

ound the fort. Colonel Dudley was instructed to land about eight hun- 
[red men from the first twelve boats, on the northern shore, and storm the 
!;itteries, which was done handsomely and quickly; but instead of crossing 
yer in the boats to the south side and taking shelter in the fort, as Harri- 
,>n had ordered, the raw and impetuous Kentuckians were drawn off by 
vme decoy parties of Canadians and Indians, who fired on them, and then 
.treated to the woods. Pursuing these one or two miles, they were flanked 
jid cut off by the British troops, who were hurried forward from their camp 
vo miles below, immediately on learning of the arrival of General Clay's 
upports. Colonel Dudley was lost sight of, and there seemed to be no 
riecific commands from him. In the first confusion, General Harrison, 

anding in the fort with spyglass in hand, had called to Dudley and his 

en to come across the river at once, but his call was unheard or unheeded. 
j.he Indians were re-enforced also, and the Kentuckians were at the mercy 
[, the enemy, in small and disordered detachments. Colonel Dudley hun- 
jflf was wounded and overtaken, and dispatched with the tomahawk. Of 
,1 his detachment, less than two hundred escaped and got safely into the 

rt. 
' The prisoners were taken down to headquarters, and put into old Fort 

iami, where the Indians were permitted to fire indiscriminately into them 
j om the ramparts. Others went in and selected victims, led them to the 

teway, and there, under the eye of General Proctor and the whole British 
fray, tomahawked and scalped them. About twenty had been massacred 
hus without a word of interference from Proctor, when Tecumseh galloped 

»wn from the batteries, and drawing his sword, indignantly ordered them, 
-for shame to desist. It is a disgrace to kill a defenseless prisoner." The 



478 HISTORY Ot KEMUCKV. 

red barbarian thus in mercy brought that relief from atrocious murder which 
had been denied by the white savage in the very sight and presence of the 
mangled and expiring victims. The prisoners were, several hundred of 
them, stowed away in the hold of the brig Hunter for two days, suffering 
the horrors of stifling, akin to those of the English prisoners in the "Black 
Hole of Calcutta," in the hands of their Sepoy captors, until liberated upon 
parole at the mouth of Huron river. 

Here we leave Dudley and go over to General Clay, with his remaining 
troops. Six boats contained all the remainder of the brigade after Dudley 
had left it with his detachment of men. In the foremost boat, near the ji 
shore on which Fort Meigs was situated, Clay was seen approaching the fort, 
assailed by a host of savages. He landed, and fought his way to the fort 
with about five hundred men. General Harrison now ordered a sortie, un- 
der Colonel Miller and Major Todd, of the regulars, against the batteries I 
which had been planted in the brush on the south side, the battalion num- f 
bering three hundred and fifty men. They charged on the enemy, number- 
ing eight hundred British, Canadians, and Indians, drove them back with j 
severe loss, spiked the cannon, and brought back forty-one prisoners, not- I 
withstanding they were outnumbered more than two to one. | 

The combined forces under Proctor in this affair of the 5 th were thirty- 
two hundred men; those of Harrison, including Clay's brigade, twenty-five 
hundred. Upon the whole, it was a day of disaster to the Americans, but 
barren of the fruits of victory to the British. 

Proctor, in the evening, demanded the surrender of Fort Meigs, which | 
was treated with derision. It was done to cover his retreat. Learning by | 
a messenger of the capture of Fort George by the Americans, and having I 
the cannon at his batteries spiked, he became alarmed at his jeopardized posi- 
tion. The Indians were chagrined and dissatisfied, and began deserting to | 
their villages in serious numbers. On the night of the 8th, he abandoned | 
his camp, and retreated back to Maiden. The killed, wounded, and prison- i 
ers of the Americans, in the series of engagements of the day, were near j 
one thousand. Those of the British and allies, not exceeding five hundred. | 
There were opportunities of a splendid victory, and the total rout or capture jl 
of the opposing army, in the plans and orders of the commanding general; | 
but all these were marplotted and destroyed by the disorderly disregard of l| 
all authority and discipline on the part of Colonel Dudley and the raw Ken- 
tuckians at the first assault on the enemy's batteries. The old pioneer 
veterans of Kentucky were passing from the theater of military action ; their 
sons who filled their places in the armies were just as brave and impetuous 
in battle as they, but lacked that wary discretion which only experience 
gives. General Harrison courteously rebuked the fatal imprudence which 
led to disaster, in the following words: " It rarely occurs that a general has 
to complain of the excessive ardor of his men, yet such appears always to \ 

be the case when Kentucky militia are engaged. It is indeed the source of j 

> 

i 
1 



TROOPS RAISED BV JOHNSON. 479 

all their misfortunes; they appear to think that valor alone can accomplish 
everything." 

; To this date of the war, the cowardly and imbecile surrender of Detroit 
'by Hull, the unmilitary negligence of Winchester, and the rash and reckless 
indiscretions of Dudley and his subordinates, had sacrificed five thousand 
jas brave men as ever bore arms upon a field of battle. In any one of the 
three engagements, the direction of the troops by competent commanders 
rand the observance of the plainest laws of military experience should have 
[^extorted victory, instead of disaster, from the wage of battle. The rank 
and file had now the plainest demonstrations that the unbridled willfulness 
;and license of raw novices might be as fatal to the efficiency of the army in 
;the presence of a wily enemy, as the stereotyped martinetism of the old 
i'fossil element of the regulars. Armies and nations, like individuals, are 
rusually too inapt and stupid to learn by any experiences except their own, 
and then often too late to profit by their lessons. From this time forward, 
the regulars had learned better the art of fighting Indians, and the militia 
*.the necessity of military drill and discipline. 

r On the adjournment of Congress, Colonel Richard M. Johnson, then a 
member, returned home and proceeded to raise a regmient of mounted 
iKentuckians, to join the forces of General Harrison. This was speedily 
faccomplished, with Lieutenant-Colonel James Johnson, and Majors Duval 
!(Payne and David Thompson next in command. At the heads of the com- 
: panics were Captains R. B. McAfee, Richard Watson, Jacob Elliston, Ben- 
ijamin Warfield, John Payne, Elijah Craig, Jacob Stucker, James Davidson, 
Is. R. Combs, W. M. Rice, and James Coleman. During June and July 
:hese troops were employed in almost continuous campaign expeditions 
against the Indian towns in the North-west, but with comparatively fruitless 
jiffect, as the Indians had mainly joined Proctor at Maiden, with their women 
md children, where they were fed and cared for. 

After the siege of Fort Meigs was raised by the coming of Clay, Harri- 
..on left the place, and Clay was put in command of the fort. While Clay 
md his troops were engaged in garrisoning Fort Meigs, on the 20th of July, 
l.hat place was again menaced with an attack of the combined British and 
I" ndian armies, but the firm bearing exhibited by the garrison prevented a 
'i econd attempt to storm the fort. 

Major Croghan, a young Kentuckian of twenty-one years, and a nephew 

.r)i General George Rogers Clark, held Fort Stephenson at Sandusky, with 

j.bout one himdred and sixty men, and one six-pounder. On the 2d of 

August, General Proctor, with five hundred British regulars and eight hun- 

Ired Indians, besieged the fort, and after a bombardment from several pieces 

'f artillery, attempted an assault. They were met with a deadly fire of 

mall arms and the single piece of artillery, and repulsed and routed with 

• loss of one hundred and fifty killed and wounded. Major Croghan lost 

ait one killed and seven wounded. This brilliant victory was unexpected, 



480 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

even by General Harrison himself, as he had sent orders to Croghan to 
abandon the fort and retreat, if possible, on the appearance of the enemy 
in force. 

^ At the suggestion of General Harrison, the Government had, early in 
the spring, ordered the construction and equipment of a fleet of vessels of 
sufficient numbers and strength to cope with that of the British, and to co- 
operate with the land forces. The port of Erie was the point selected for 
this important work, and was well fortified and protected against attack by 
the British naval forces, during its progress. The English, in the meantime, 
repaired and increased their navy with the construction of one large new 
brig at Maiden, then Detroit. Commodore Perry was appointed to take 
command of the American fleet, which was completed, and the ships buoyed 
over the bar into the deep waters of the lake, by the 4th of August, and in 
sight of the British vessels, which lay at a distance in full view. The latter 
soon after weighed anchor and sailed for Maiden. Commodore Perry sailed 
for Sandusky bay, and from thence appeared before the harbor of Maiden 
to offer battle, if the enemy desired. Failing to draw him out, he retired 
to Put-in-Bay, to watch the sailing of the British fleet under Commodore 
Barclay. 

General Harrison had received the sanction and authority of the Govern- 
ment to call for more forces to undertake a campaign against Maiden, by the' 
20th of July. On the 30th, his letter reached Governor Shelby asking for 
not less than four hundred nor more than two thousand volunteers, to be 
furnished at the earliest possible day. On the 31st, the patriotic and gallant 
old governor issued the call for as many as would respond to rendezvous at 
Newport on the 3Tst of August. Said he : "I will meet you there in per- 
son. I will lead you to the field of battle, and share with you the dangers 
and honors of the campaign." On the day appointed, thirty-five hundred 
Kentuckians met the governor at the rendezvous, and on September 12th 
they had reached the camp at Upper Sandusky, ready for the campaign. 
The troops were formed into eleven regiments, commanded respectively by 
Colonels Trotter, Donaldson, Poague, Montjoy, Rennick, Davenport, Taul, 
Calloway, Simrall, Barbour, and Williams, and these regiments into five 
brigades, under the lead of Generals Calmes, Chiles, King, Allen, and Cald- 
well. The whole was in two divisions, at the head of which were Major- 
Generals William Henry and Joseph Desha. 

Colonel Richard M. Johnson's regiment of dragoons was now swollen to 
twelve hundred men, and had been put into an efficiency of drill and exer- 
cise by the indefatigable attentions of its lieutenant-colonel, James Johnson. 
The men were daily taught the special art of fighting Indians by charging 
through their lines and forming in their rear, and by outflanking them. 
Frequent sham battles had even taught their horses to charge through the 
lines of infantry in the midst of musketry fire, without halting or shying. 

1 McAfee, p. 34a. 



AMERICAN VICTORY ON LAKE ERIE. 48 1 

" The 9th of September," says McAfee, who was present as captain of a 
company, "was appointed by the president for fasting, humiliation, and 
prayer. Throughout the camp, many groups of soldiers could be seen pay- 
ing their devotions to God, and chanting His praises with simple zeal and 
sincerity, while the less pious preserved the strictest order and decorum. 
The author could not but feel a deep reverence, approaching a complete re- 
liance, that the special protection of Heaven would be enjoyed by the Amer- 
ican army while fighting in the sacred cause of justice and humanity." 

General Harrison had detailed the company of Captain Stockton, and 
about twenty men from the company of Captain Payne, all Kentucky volun- 
teers, as marines and sharpshooters, on board the fleet of Commodore Perry, 
in all about one hundred men. The two fleets equipped and manned, and 
now contestants for the supremacy of Lake Erie, were in daily expectation of 
an engagement that would be decisive for the nationality of the one country 
or the other. The respective naval armaments opposed to each other were 
as follows: The American fleet was composed of brigs Lawrence, Niagara, 
and Caledonia, forty-three guns; schooners Ariel, Scorpion, Tigress, Som- 
ers, and Porcupine, twelve guns; and sloop Trippe, one gun; total, fifty-six 
guns. The British fleet of the ships Detroit and Queen Charlotte, thirty- 
nine guns; brig Hunter, ten guns; schooners Provost and Chippeway, seven- 
teen guns; and sloop Little Belt, three guns; total, sixty-nine guns. On the 
1 2th, General Harrison dispatched from Seneca to Governor Shelby, a dupli- 
cate of the celebrated laconic note of Commodore Perry as received by 
him: 

"United States Brig Niagara, September lo, 1813. — Dear General: 
We have met the enemy and they are ours — two ships, two brigs, one 
schooner, and a sloop. Yours, 

Oliver Hazard Perry." 

Not a vessel of the British had escaped ; and the shock of unexpected 
defeat came to them with the forebodings of a change in the fortunes of war 
now at hand. The electrifying news was received by the divisions of the 
American army at Seneca and Sandusky with tumultuous joy. As it was 
borne from post to station down to Cincinnati, and across to Kentucky, the 
people took up the refrain, and echoed and re-echoed the glad tidings through- 
out the land. Minuter description of this great naval battle we leave for the 
pages of American history, where it properly belongs. 

General Harrison at once made all preparation to invade Canada. On 
the 27th of September, the whole army, embarked on the now ample fleet of 
Commodore Perry, was landed four miles below Maiden, in array of battle, 
as it was expected that General Proctor would aim to meet it at once with 
his equal army of British and savage allies. Advancing in sight of Maiden, 
the Americans found it but a mass of smoking ruins. The British had 
burned the fort and navy yard, and retreated up the rivers Detroit and 
Thames. General Harrison at once followed as far as Sandwich and camped. 

3' 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Major Chas. S. Todd was sent across the river to intercept the mounted 
regiment of Colonel Johnson, and to order it over with the main body. ^ 

A consultation of generals determined on a vigorous pursuit of Proctor, 
and to force him to battle. Following the retreating army up the valleys of 
the two rivers for several days, with occasional skirmishing, and the capture 
of some boats and stores. Proctor was finally brought to bay at a point on 
the river Thames near the Moravian town, and eighty miles above Sandwich. 
On the morning of the 5th of October, information was had that the British 
army were in line of battle but a short distance ahead. The British regulars 
were formed in two lines, with their left on the river, and their right extend- 
ing to a swamp some three hundred yards distant from the river. Beyond 
the swamp the Indians formed the right wing under the immediate command 
of Tecumseh, their lines stretching across an isthmus of dry ground, to 
another swamp some hundreds of yards from the first. With the forest of 
trees and some undergrowth, the position was a strong one. The British 
regulars were between eight and nine hundred, and their savage allies near 
two thousand. The American forces had been much reduced by detach- 
ments left to garrison and guard the posts, the property and horses, and the 
defenseless in the rear. The respective numbers of the two armies were 
nearly equal. 

General Harrison disposed his front infantry line of Trotter's brigade, 
with King's and Chiles' commands, all forming the right wing, under Gen- 
eral Henry. General Desha, with the commands of Allen, Caldwell, and 
Simrall, formed the left wing facing the Indians. Colonel Richard M. 
Johnson's splendid mounted regiment, of over eight hundred Kentuckians 

present, was ordered to take a position in front 
of the right wing, and at the given signal, to 
charge through the ranks of the British reg- 
ulars, wheel upon their rear, and deliver 
their volleys into their ranks from that posi- 
tion. They had no swords, but simply their 
rifles and muskets. Among the Kentuck- 
ians the cry was given, '■'■ Remember Raisin P* 
Like an electric fire, it was repeated along 
the lines, ''Remember Raisin ! '^ 

Colonel Johnson very soon found that the 
ground was. too narrow between the swamp 
and river to operate all his regiment against 
the regulars. Placing his gallant brother, 
Lieutenant-Colonel James Johnson, at the 
head of one-half the regiment for this purpose, he led the other half to the 
left, to charge Tecumseh's Indians. The signal was given, and the cry went 
down the lines of the two battalions, ''Remember Raisin!" With resistless 

I McAfee, p. 362. 




COLONEL RICHARD M, JOHNSON, 



TECUMSEH SLAIN. 483 




impetuosity, in the face of a musketry volley from the British line, the cav- 

' airy of the right division charged through the swaying ranks of the regulars, 

■ wheeled to the right and left, and poured a destructive fire upon the rear of 
the disordered columns. In a few minutes the contest was over. Almost 

-bodily the British threw down their arms and surren- 

r'dered, over eight hundred strong, to one-half their 

■number, before the front line of infantry had ap- 
proached near enough to deliver a single volley. 

' General Proctor, however, made his escape, es-^ 

'corted by a party of dragoons and mounted 
Indians, who were vainly pursued as far as the 

' Moravian town by a mounted party. 

The position of the Indians on the right 
was more difficult to approach. They re- 

' served their fire until Col. Johnson's mounted 
battalion, followed close in the rear by the front 

' line of infantry, had approached within a few 

" paces of their position. A deadly volley cut ^ tecumseh 

down many of the advanced guard, and wounded severely the colonel him- 
self. Finding the ground unfavorable for the movement of the horses, he 
dismounted his columns, and advanced them in line before the enemy. A 
fierce conflict ensued for ten minutes at close quarters, when the savages 
gave way before the destructive fire, and fled through the brush into the 
outer swamp. Among their slain was the great chieftain and warrior, Te- 
cumseh, whose military sagacity and prowess gave an inspiration of courage 
to the savage allies. The news of his death spread a panic among them, 
which completed the signal defeat of the British army. As soon as the 
fighting was forced by Johnson's second battalion. Governor Shelby ordered 
a portion of Donelson's regiment to their support. They promptly obeyed, 
and in time to deliver their effective volleys into the ranks of the Indians. 
This was the only portion of the infantry which had an opportunity of par- 
ticipating in the battle, so sweeping were the onsets of the impetuous dra- 
goons. 

The dead body of Tecumseh was found at the point where Colonel John- 
son had charged the enemy in person ; and the testimony goes strongly to 
confirm the belief of many, that the mighty warrior fell by the hand of the 
brave and dauntless hero who led his Kentuckians into the battle. Of this 
tragic scene. Colonel Johnson says that the Indians lay behind an appar- 
ently impassable swamp, in ambush. A narrow passway to them was found, 
over which he pushed forward at the head of twenty men to draw their 
fire, and enable the remainder of the battalion to charge with more effect. 
Mounted on a white mare, he was a conspicuous mark for the guns of the 
enemy. The little band in front received the whole Indian fire, and nine- 
teen of the twenty were killed or wounded. The brave leader* received 



I 



484 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



four wounds, and his faithful mare fifteen. Though she staggered and fell 
to her knees, she recovered at the touch of the rein. The remainder of the 
troops coming up, he led them forward and drove back the Indians. He 
noticed a daring chief, who rallied the foe three several times. Advancing 
singly upon him, the chief took a tree, and from its shelter deliberately fired 
on Colonel Johnson. The bullet striking one of the fingers, passed through 
his left hand. Disabled from holding the rein with his hand, he let it fall 
over his wrist and thus guided his mare. The Indian, supposing that he 
had given a fatal wound, came out from behind the tree and advanced on 
him with uplifted tomahawk. With his right arm yet free, Colonel Johnson 
drew his pistol and instantly fired at him at a distance of ten feet. The 
chieftain fell dead, when the Indians at once retreated into the swamps and 
brush. 

Though Tecumseh's body was found at the spot, other slain Indians lay 
near; and as Colonel Johnson was borne from the field desperately wounded, 
the chieftain's body could not be certainly identified as the one slain by him. 
In the language of McAfee, the Indians "had lost by the fall of Tecumseh 
a chief in whom were united the powers of Achilles and the authority of 
Agamemnon." The entire losses on the part of the Americans were some 
seventy killed and wounded; that of the British and Indians were seven 
hundred prisoners, and over two hundred killed and wounded. The Ken- 
tuckians lamented the death of the veteran pioneer. Colonel William Whitley, 
who fell fighting bravely in the front; and some days after. Captain Craig 
and Lieutenant Logan died of their wounds. It is worthy of mention that 
the faithful white mare of Colonel Johnson sank down and expired in the | 
midst of the carnage, where she had nobly borne her heroic master. 

Many yet living will remember the brothers, Richard M., James, and 
John T. Johnson, residents formerly of Scott county. They were the imper- 
sonation of the heroic in character. For their country, patriotism knew no 
sacrifice they were not ever ready to offer up. For their neighbors and 
friends in need, no bounds were ever set to the generous disposal of their 
services and possessions. Wherever duty called, all idea of self was ob- 
scured in the devotions of performance. Not Percy nor Richard were more 
impetuous and daring on the field of battle, where the front of peril was the 
point they ever sought, to make of themselves an example and a shield for 
their devoted followers. The first-named was honored by his countrymen 
with a seat in Congress, and finally with the vice-presidency of the United 
States. The last-named also, John T. Johnson, left the halls of Congress 
under a sense of duty and loyalty to an authority higher than human, to 
devote his life services to the ministry of religion, in which he gave the same 
impassioned and self-denying consecration that had distinguished the trio of 
brothers in other spheres of duty. 

Of Johnson's mounted regiment, General Harrison says, in his report to 
the secretary of war : "It would be useless to pass encomiums on Colonel 



li 



KENTUCKY VOLUNTEERS DISCHARGED. 485 

Johnson and his regiment. Veterans could not have manifested more firm- 
tness. The colonel's wounds prove him to have been at the post of danger. 
ILieutenant-Colonel Johnson and Majors Payne and Thompson were equally 
(active. " 

After mentioning that Captain Charles S. Todd had rendered him most 

f important services throughout the campaign, very gratefully to the feelings 

'.of affection and admiration which the Kentuckians bore to their venerated 

Lgovernor, General Harrison continues: "■ I am at a loss how to mention the 

■♦merits of Governor Shelby, being convinced that no eulogium of mine can 

I do them justice. The governor of an independent State, and greatly my 

I superior in years, in experience, and in military fame, he placed himself 

under my command, and was not more remarkable for his zeal and activity, 

than for the promptitude and cheerfulness with which he obeyed my orders. 

Major-Generals Henry and Desha, and Brigadiers Allen, Caldwell, King, 

I Chiles, and Trotter, all of the Kentucky volunteers, manifested great zeal 

i and activity. Of Governor Shelby's staff, Adjutant-General McDowell and 

' Quartermaster-General Walker rendered great services, as did his aids, 

i General Adair and Majors Barry and Crittenden." 

I" The Indians, under shelter of swamp and forest, were routed and driven 
!: by not exceeding one-third their number of Kentuckians, as the British 
u regulars had far more easily been by a force one-half their own. Over half 

the American troops failed of an opportunity to fire a volley. 
. The power of the British in the North-west being thus shattered, the hos- 
tile tribes were nearly all solicitous to make terms of peace, which were 
I satisfactory to General Harrison. He had recently before, in necessary self- 
protection, employed some of the Indians in the campaign against the 
; British. He now engaged more of the warriors in the same service, but 
under rigid restrictions against the indiscriminate murder of non-combatants, 
/ and other barbarities to which they were commonly instigated by British 
|i officers. The successful restraints put upon the Indians by American offi- 
■ cers, by an exceptional few of the British officers, and bv Tecumseh him- 
I self, and which were mainly effectual, prove conclusively that General 
[• Proctor, and others of his class, were personally guilty of the innocent 
'; blood which drenched the land under the ruthless tomahawk of the red bar- 
V barian, through so many painful and suffering years of war. No less did 
' that guilt of superlative crime stain the honor and integrity of the British 

throne. 

• The Kentucky volunteers returned home, and, on the 4th of November, 

> were mainly discharged by Major Trigg, at Limestone. The subsequent 

» events of the war in the North-west were without interest or importance 

worthy of mention in Kentucky history, with a single exception. Under 

an order of Secretary Armstrong, of the war department, General McAr- 

thur was authorized to call for one thousand mounted men for an expedition 

against the Potawatamies, who had shown a disposition to continue in the 



486 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

service of the British. A call was made on the governors of Ohio and 
Kentucky for five hundred men, each. In a few weeks seven volunteer i 
companies from Kentucky were ready, and at the point of rendezvous in j 
time, under the command of Major Peter Dudley. Changing the plan of 
campaign to create a diversion for the relief of Fort Erie, which was seri- 
ously threatened, General McArthur marched up by Detroit and crossed 
St. Clair river into Canada. Advancing some two hundred miles by way 
of Oxford and Burford, with frequent skirmishes, a sharp fight was had 
with a force of the enemy over five hundred strong. The result was a com- 
plete rout of the latter, with a loss to them of one hundred and sixty in 
killed, wounded, and prisoners. The expedition having accomplished a 
very desirable success, General McArthur returned to Sandwich, where the 
enlisted men were honorably discharged. For gallant conduct during this 
campaign. Majors Todd and Dudley and Captain Bradford were honorably 
mentioned in McArthur's report. 

The field of the South-west becomes next the object of attractive interest, 
as the theater of the dramatic military events which culminated in the mem- 
orable battle of New Orleans, and closed the war with signal disaster to the 
British arms. The decisive battle of Waterloo on the i8th of June, 18 14, 
gave victory to Lord Wellington, and completed the downfall of Napoleon 
upon the continent of Europe. A general pacification followed; and the 
veteran troops, who had won victories and borne defeats in the campaigns 
against the greatest general of history, were released from active hostilities. 
A large armament of ships of war and thirteen thousand veteran troops were 
to sail for the Mexican gulf in September. The armament which had 
captured and burned Washington City was to join this. ^In view of this for- 
midable demonstration on the part of England, the war department ordered 
twenty-five hundred of the detached militia of Kentucky to join the recruits 
from Georgia and Tennessee, as re-enforcements for the army of General Jack- 
son quartered at Mobile. These, with the regulars and volunteers from Louis- 
iana and Mississippi Territory, would place at the disposal of the general a 
combined force of some fourteen thousand men, for operations on the lower 
Mississippi and the gulf. 

Before we detail the immediate operations of the contending armies, in 
the attempt of the enemy to get possession of New Orleans and subdue the 
State of Louisiana, it would be proper to take a preliminary view of the 
preceding situation of our affairs in that quarter, and of the preparations on 
foot both to make and to meet the invasion. 

According to the advices from our commissioners in Europe, a large 
armament was to sail from Great Britain in September, carrying out from 
twelve to fifteen thousand troops for the intended conquest. The armament 
which had captured Washington City was, also, now directing its course to 
the South, where its' rapacious commanders were allured by the spoil of a 

I McAfee, p. 500. 



LOUISIANA IN A STATE OF DEFENSE. 487 

rich and luxurious city, and favored in their designs by the climate, the sea- 
;son, and the situation of our affairs. We had no army of veterans led by 
long experienced generals to oppose them in that quarter. The indispensable 
munitions of war, and the militiamen destined to use them, were still in 
the arsenals and at their houses, more than a thousand miles distant, on the 
'route they had to traverse to the scene of action. 

It, hence, became the duty of our Government and its military function- 
aries to make the most active preparations for a vigorous defense. Nor was 
the pressure of this duty in the least alleviated by adverting to the internal 
'condition of Louisiana, both in regard of its population and the facility with 
twhich it could be invaded from the ocean. Its situation in the Union was 
'remote in the extreme. Its coasts were intersected by numerous bays, lakes, 
rivers, and bayous, through which the enemy could penetrate to the interior 
*>in his small vessels. The banks of those avenues being marshy and unin- 
habited, they could not, with facility, be guarded by our militia. The popu- 
lation in general was composed of Frenchmen and Spaniards, who had, 
•whether foreigners or natives, been bred under the most despotic forms of 
-government. They had not yet become familiar with our institutions, and 
were much antagonized in their sentiments and views to the American people. 
"The militia of the country had, on a late occasion, refused to comply with 
-the requisitions of the governor, and a great many European Frenchmen had 
entered their adhesions to Louis XVIII., and through the medium of the 
French consul claimed exemption from military service. Local jealousies, 
national prejudices, and political factions, dividing and distracting the people, 
■' prevented that union and zeal in the common cause, which the safety of the 
country demanded. Hence, there was a general despondency and want of 
- preparation for the approaching crisis. The disaffected and traitorous, how- 
ever, were on the alert, carefully communicating the earliest intelligence, and 
every species of useful information respecting the country to the British. 
The Legislature was protracting its session to an unusual length without 
~ adopting such measures as the alarming situation of the State required. It 
was represented as being politically rotten ; and particularly, that in the House 
of Representatives the idea had been advanced, advocated, and favorably 
heard, that a considerable portion of the State belonged of right to the Span- 
ish Government. That, too, at a time when the co-operation of the Span- 
iards with the British in the expected invasion was the prevailing opinion. 
Such was the character of the population and the situation of our affairs 
at New Orleans, as represented by the highest authority, to the government 
and the commander of the district. A vast majority of the people, however, 
consisting of the natives of that country and emigrants to it from other parts 
of the Union, were well disposed to our cause, and willing to acquiesce and 
co-operate in the necessary measures of defense. By these General Jackson 
was hailed, on his arrival at New Orleans, with acclamations of unbounded 
joy, as a deliverer sent to save their country from approaching ruin. 



488 HISTORY OF KEXTUCKV. 

In the meantime, the militia from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia 
were in motion. The orders of the war department were received by the |< 
respective governors about the 20th of October, and about one month after- 
w^ard the militia of Kentucky and Tennessee were embarked in flats, and 
ready to descend to New Orleans. The Kentucky detachment of twenty- 
five hundred men was commanded by General John Thomas, who was ac- 
companied by General John Adair, as adjutant-general to the division, an 
officer of tried valor and known military talents. Three thousand of the 
Tennessee militia were sent down the river, under the command of Gen- 
eral William Carroll and Brigadier-General Byrd Smith. The former had 
recently been elected to succeed General Jackson in the militia, when he 
was transferred into the regular service. The other two thousand of the Ten- 
nessee draft were sent toward Mobile, under the command of General Taylor; 
and the Georgia detachment was ordered for the same place, under the com- 
mand of General John Mcintosh and General Blackshear. Artillery, mus- 
ketry, and ammunition were also embarked at Pittsburgh and other points 
on the Ohio, for the use of these troops and the fortifications at New Orleans; 
the greater portion of which did not arrive until the conflict terminated. 

Before General Jackson left Mobile, he made arrangements for transfer- 
ring nearly the whole of his troops in that quarter to New Orleans. The 
corps of the army brought from that quarter were the mounted brigade 
of Tennessee volunteers, two companies of the Forty-fourth United States 
regiment, and Hind's squadron of dragoons. About the ist of December, 
General Jackson arrived with his infantry at the city, and immediately com- 
menced the most active preparations for defense. His lofty character as an 
energetic, intrepid, and skillful general had gone before him; and having 
secured him the unbounded confidence of the people, enabled him to ex- 
ercise an unlimited influence over them. The governor had ordered the 
militia of his State en masse to hold themselves in readiness to march at a 
moment's warning, and several corps were already in active service. 

To guard the different avenues through which the enemy could approach 
the city, so as to prevent a surprise, and be ready at every point to meet 
them, was an object of primary importance. The general, hence, immedi- 
ately reconnoitered the country in person, to ascertain the places at which 
it was most necessary that guards should be posted. He accordingly sta- 
tioned a detachment of regulars on the bayou Bienvenue, which led from 
Lake Borgne into the plantation of General Villere, upon the bank of the 
Mississippi, about six miles below the city. A guard was also posted upon 
the Chef Mentiere, a bayou which leads from Lake Borgne into Lake Pont- 
chartrain. The enemy would be able to come up these natural canals in 
their boats, and upon foot along their banks, which would greatly facilitate 
their approach; all the country around Orleans, except where there is a pass 
of this description, being an impenetrable morass. Strong batteries and a 
garrison were at the mouth of the bayou St. John, which forms the chief 



THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 489 

communication and common highway from the city into Lake Pontchartrain. 
Between the latter and Lake Borgne, which lies below it, there is a com- 
• jmunication called the Rigolets, through which vessels of some burden can 
bass, upon which was a fortification on an island called the Petit Coquille. 
The general also visited and strengthened the old fortress on the Mississippi 
)elow New Orleans, called Fort Plaquemine, or St. Philip. A flotilla com- 
manded by Lieutenant Jones, and consisting of five gunboats, a schooner, 
md a sloop, was stationed at Bay St. Louis, about fifty miles east of New 
Orleans. 

On the 1 2 th of December, intelligence was received at the city that the 

Eiostile fleet had made its appearance in the gulf, between the Balize and 

Alobile point, to the number of forty sail. Having selected Ship Island, 

)ff the bay of St. Louis, as a place of rendezvous, they began to concen- 

rate at that place; and on the 12th they had arrived there in such force that 

•lieutenant Jones thought it most prudent to retire from their vicinity to the 

vlalheureux islands, at the entrance of Lake Borgne; from which he could 

igain retire, if necessary, to the Petit Coquille, and dispute the passage into 

Lake Pontchartrain. On the morning of the 13th, he discovered a large 

lotilla of barges leaving the fleet and steering westward, obviously with 

;he intention of attacking his gun-vessels. He had that morning sent the 

schooner into the bay of St. Louis, to bring away the public stores from 

"he position he had evacuated. The enemy, having discovered her, sent 

-hree barges against her, which were driven back by a few discharges of 

'■;rapeshot, until they were joined by four others. A sharp contest was then 

maintained for half an hour, when they were again forced to withdraw, with 

-:onsiderable loss. But the commander of the schooner, Mr. Johnson, find- 

'■ng it impossible to escape with his vessel, now blew her up, .set fire to the 

'itorehouse on shore, and escaped with his crew by land. 

' Lieutenant Jones, in the meantime, had got under sail, with the intention 

)f retiring to the Petit Coquille ; but the water being unusually low in those 

;;hallow bays, lakes, and passes, and the wind and tide being unfavorable, 

'leither the pursuers nor the pursued could make much progress. At mid- 

light the gunboats came to anchor at the west end of the Malheureux pass ; 

'ind in the morning of the 14th, the enemy's barges were discovered within 

^i few miles of them. A calm, with a strong current against him, now com- 

foelled Lieutenant Jones to prepare for action, though the force of the enemy 

Vas vastly superior. They had forty-two launches and barges, with three 

'^igs, carrying forty-two carronades, twelve eighteen and twenty-four pound- 

i|;rs, and twelve hundred men, all commanded by Captain Lockyer, the ex- 

■ninister at the court of Barataria. Our five gun-vessels carried twenty 

•^uns and one hundred and eiglity-two men; the sloop carried only one four- 

rpounder and eight men. 

' The enemy came up in line of battle, and at eleven o'clock the action 
ttiad become general, warm, and destructive on both sides. Three barges 



49° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

presently made an attempt to carry the nearest gunboat by boarding, and 
were repulsed with dreadful slaughter, two of them being sunk. The at- 
tempt was renewed by four others, with nearly the same result. The enemy, 
howeYer, persevered, and finally succeeded in capturing the whole, having 
carried most of them by boarding The action lasted about two hours, and 
was uncommonly se\ere and bloody. The loss of the enemy was estimated 
at three hundred killed and wounded, and several barges sunk. Our loss in 
killed and wounded was comparatively very small, being only five killed and 
thirty wounded. Both Jones and Lockyer were wounded severely. A resist- 
ance so obstinate and destructive to the enemy, against a force so superior, 
reflects the highest honor on the American officers and seamen. They had 
formerly been under the command of Captain Porter, who immortalized ^'al 
paraiso by the obstinate and desperate resistance which he made at that place 
against a sujierior force of the enemy, and they now proved themselves 
worthy pupils of that invincible naval hero. 

On the day after the battle, intelligence of the result was brought to New 
Orleans by the commander of the schooner, who had escaped by land from 
the bay of St. Louis. The city already alarmed, distracted, and despairing, 
was thrown into consternation and confusion by the event. A powerful, 
well-disciplined, and well-appointed army was upon the coast, and the only 
feeble barrier which prevented its approach through the lakes, within a few 
miles of the city, was now entirely swept away. The whole force under 
Jackson, on which the salvation of the State depended, did not exceed four 
thousand, of which only one thousand were regulars. The greater part of 
this force was kept at the city, that it might be ready to meet the invaders 
in any pass which they might select for their approach. The mounted vol- 
unteers under Coffee had not yet arrived from Mobile. 

At such a crisis and in such circumstances, the utmost exertions of every 
patriot, and the most vigorous and efficient measures for the public security 
became indispensable. The general had not forgotten the representations | 
which he had previously received from the highest authority, concerning the 
general character of the population, the number of disaffected persons in 
the city, and particularly the want of confidence in the legislative repre- 
sentatives of the people, which their conduct in the present session had 
inspired. With a view, therefore, to supersede such civil powers, as in their 
operation might interfere with those which he would be obliged to exercise 
in pursuing the best measures for the safety of the country, and under a 
solemn conviction, after consulting with the best patriots in the place, that 
the measure was proper and required by the situation of our affairs, he de- 
termined to place, and on the i6th did proclaim, *' the city and environs ot 
New Orleans under strict martial law." This decisive measure received tht 
approbation and cordial acquiescence of every friend to the safety of the 
country. It was accompanied by suitable regulations, which required every 
person entering the city to report himself at the office of the adjutant-gen- 



GENERAL JACKSOX S PROCLAMATION. 49I 

, and ever}- person or vessel leaving it, to procure a passport from the 
cneral, one of his staff, or the commanding naval officer. The street lamps 
were to be extinguished at nine o'clock in the night, and every i^erson after- 
^•ard found abroad, without permission in writing, was to be apprehended as 
a spy. The whole of the citizens — sojourners, passengers, and persons of 
:£very description, who were capable of bearing arms — were pressed into the 
land and naval service. 

The general at tne same time published the following address to the 
people: 

The major-general commanding has learned, with astonishment and 
(regret, that great consternation and alarm pervade your city. It is true the 
enemy is on our coast, and threatens an invasion of our territon*- ; but it is 
[equally true, that with union, energy, and the approbation of Heaven, we 
iwill beat him at even." point, where his temerit}- may induce him to set foot 
Dn our* soil. ' 

' The general, with still greater astonishment, has heard that British emis- 
saries have been permitted to propagate a seditious report among you. that 
^e threatened invasion is with a view of restoring the country to Spain, 
from a supposition that some of you would be willing to return to your 
kncient government. Believe no such incredible tales. Your Government 
is at peace with Spain. It is the mortal enemy of your country, the com- 
emon enemy of mankind, the highway robber of the world, who threatens 
vfou, and has sent his hirelings among you with this false report, to put you 
ryS your guard, that you may fall an easy prey to his rapacit}-. Then look 
etc your liberties, your propert}', and the chastit}" of your wives and daughters. 
iTake a retrospect of the conduct of the British army at Hampton, and other 
places where it entered our countn.", and ever}- bosom which glows with 
patriotism and virtue will be inspired with indignation, and pant for the 
Hxival of the hour when we shall meet the enemy and revenge these out- 
rages against the laws of civilization and humanit}-. 

" The general calls upon the inhabitants of the city to trace this unfounded 
report to its source, and bring the perpetrator to condign punishment. The 
i-ules and articles of war annex the punishment of death to the crime of 
'lolding secret correspondence with the enemy, supplying him with pro- 
■^nsions. or creating false alarms : and the general announces his unalterable 
^termination, rigidly to execute the martial law in all cases which may 
»me within his p»rovince. 

'•The safety of the district entrusted to the protection of the general 
nust and will be maintained with the best blood of the country : and he is 
'»nfident that all good citizens will be found at their posts with arms in their 
'lands, determined to dispute every inch of the ground with the enemy, and 
hat unanimity will penade the whole country. But should the general be 
iisappointed in this expectation, /le will separate our enemies from our friends. 
^Those 'icho are not for us are against us, and will be dealt with accordingly " 



492 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The traitors well knew from the character of General Jackson that the 
threatening parts of this proclamation were not mere sound and fury, but 
that they would be carried into execution with the utmost rigor and prompti- 
tude. Disaffection was thus awed into silence, and the friends of the country 
were inspired with unbounded confidence, harmony, and enthusiasm. The 
militia of the city and all its environs were armed, accoutered, and drilled 
twice every day. On the i8th, an address from the general was read to those 
of the city, by his volunteer aid, Mr, Livingston, the following extracts from 
which will exhibit the spirit of the times: 

"The general commanding in chief would not do justice to the noble 
ardor that has animated you, in the hour of danger — he would not do jus- 
tice to his own feelings — if he suffered the example you have shown to pass 
without public notice. Inhabitants of an opulent and commercial town, you 
have, by a spontaneous effort, shaken off the habits which are created by 
wealth, and shown that you are resolved to deserve the blessings of fortune 
by bravely defending them. Long strangers to the perils of war, you have 
embodied yourselves to face them with the cool countenance of veterans; 
with motives to disunion, that might operate on weak minds, you have 
forgotten the difference of language, and the prejudices of national pride, 
and united with a cordiality that does honor to your understanding as well 
as to your patriotism." 

Information was now received that the enemy, after the capture of our 
brave flotilla, was pressing to the westward, through the islands and passes 
of Lake Borgne, in his boats and light vessels; but the point at which he 
would attempt to debark, or the pass through which he would endeavor to 
reach the city, was still unknown. With a view to greater security, in guard- 
ing the numerous bayous and canals, which lead from the lake through the 
swampy district, to the high land on the margin of the river, the superinted- 
ence of that service was entrusted to Major-General Villere, who commanded 
the militia between the river and the lake, and who, being a native of the coun- 
try, was presumed to be best acquainted with its topography. He kept a 
picket guard stationed at the mouth of the bayou Bienvenue, which led into 
his own plantation on the bank of the river ; but contrary to the orders of Gen- 
eral Jackson, he left the navigation of the bayou unobstructed. On the 23d 
of December, the enemy having selected this pass for their approach, suc- 
ceeded in surprising the guard at the mouth of the bayou, and in capturing 
a company of militia, stationed on the plantation of General Villere. Their 
troops were then conveyed up the bayou to the number of three thousand, 
and an encampment formed between the river and the marsh, on the prem- 
ises of Major Lacoste. The intelligence of their approach was brought to 
headquarters at the city about one o'clock on that day, and General Jackson 
immediately determined to attack them, without delay, in their first position. 

In the meantime, General Coffee had arrived with his brigade of mounted 
men from Mobile, and also General Carroll with part of his division of 



JACKSON ATTACKS THE BRITISH. 493 

militia infantry from West Tennessee. The latter had descended the rivers 
with a degree of celerity unparalleled in the history of military movements. 
His troops had embarked on the 24th ultimo at Nashville, and on the even- 
ing of the 2 2d instant, it being the twenty-ninth day of their voyage, they 
arrived very opportunely near the city of New Orleans. They were now- 
encamped with the mounted men, who had also recently arrived, about four 
miles above the city, and were all immediately ordered down by General 
Jackson, to anticipate the dangers of battle on the toils of the march. 
The general expected that the troops which the enemy were debarking by 
the pass of Bienvenue did not constitute their principal, or at least their 
only force, but that a simultaneous attack would be made by the w^ay of 
Chef Mentiere. He, therefore, posted the division of General Carroll, with 
the city militia, on the Gentilly road leading to Chef Mentiere, to meet such 
an event. At five o'clock he was ready to march down against the enemy 
with the rest of his troops. The whole force was very much inferior to that 
of the enemy, which was commanded by General Keane. 

About seven o'clock. General Jackson arrived near the British encamp- 
ment, where all was quiet, his advance upon them being concealed under 
cover of the night, while their fires in the camp fully exposed them to his 
view. Their right extended to the swamp, and their left, which was the 
strongest part of their lines, rested on the bank of the river. Arrangements 
were immediately made for the attack. General Coffee was ordered to turn 
their right, while Jackson, wnth the regulars, attacked their strongest posi- 
tion on the left. Commodore Patterson had been ordered to drop down the 
river in the schooner Carolina, and commence a fire on their camp, which 
was to be the signal for a general charge. 

At half-past eight the commodore opened his fire. General Coffee's troops 
then rushed on the right of the enemy with great impetuosity, and entered 
their camp; while Jackson engaged their left wnth equal ardor, supported 
by the fire of the schooners and the two field pieces. The action soon be- 
came general, and was obstinately contested on both sides, the hostile troops 
being frequently intermixed with each other in the conflict. About ten 
o'clock, after the battle had raged more than an hour, a thick fog came 
over them, which caused some confusion among our troops, and rendered 
it necessary, in the opinion of our general, to desist from the contest. Had 
it not been for this unfortunate occurrence, he would no doubt have gained 
a decisive victory, and have blasted at once the presumptuous hopes of the 
invader. He lay on the field of battle, in the face of the enemy, till four 
o'clock in the morning, and then withdrew his army with so much address 
as to elude their vigilance, and conceal the weakness of the force by which 
they had been so boldly attacked. Having retired up the river about two 
miles, he encamped his troops on the firm, open ground between the river 
and the swamp, at a narrow point between the enemy and the city, where 
their progress could be arrested with less labor and fewer troops than at any 



494 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Other position he could have selected. The instinctive qualities of general- 
ship Jackson never failed to show in every emergency. 

When General Keane first reached the banks of the Mississippi, he felt 
supremely confident that the conquest of the city would be an easy achieve- 
ment for his Wellington invincibles; but the uncivil greeting which he re- 
ceived the first evening on our shores convinced him of his error, taught 
him to respect our prowess and enterprise, and made him contented with 
maintaining his first position, until the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral Sir Edward Packenham, could arrive with the balance of the forces. 
The m.ost important advantages were thus derived to our cause by this bold, 
decisive, and judicious movement of our general. The progress of the ene- 
my was arrested, which gave us time to fortify and entrench our lines in the 
most eligible position for defense; and our success in the battle inspired our 
troops with the confidence of veterans. The loss of the enemy was com- 
puted at four hundred killed, two hundred and thirty wounded, and seventy 
prisoners captured, including among them one niajor and several other offi- 
cers of less rank. Our loss was twenty-four killed, one hundred and fifteen 
wounded, and seventy-four missing. Among the dead were Lieutenant- 
Colonel Lauderdale, of the Tennessee mounted men, and Lieutenant Mc- 
Clelland, of the Seventh infantry, and several other officers were wounded. 

General Jackson now determined to fortify his position, act on the de- 
fensive, and await the arrival of the Kentucky detachment. The interests 
committed to his care were too important to be exposed to any unnecessary 
hazard by offensive and premature operations against the enemy. The care 
of Chef Mentiere pass being entrusted to Colonel Morgan, of the city mili- 
tia, the division of General Carroll was brought down to the lines, and the 
fortifications commenced with the utmost vigor and dispatch. They con- 
sisted of a straight line of works extending from the river on the right of 
our troops to the swamp on their left. A breastwork was thrown up from 
four to five feet high, with a wet ditch close in front, about four feet deep 
and eight feet wide. Several heavy pieces of artillery were then mounted 
on the works, with their embrasures lined with bales of cotton. On the right, 
the works terminated in a bastion, w-ith a battery calculated for raking the 
ditch. Such were the fortifications now completed with the utmost expedi- 
tion in the power of our troops, aided by the labor of a number of negroes 
from the plantations. The opening of the ditch was also facilitated by the 
presence of an old canal which had been dug to convey the water of the 
river, down to a mill at the edge of the swamp. 

On the 2oth, the ship Louisiana, Commodore Patterson, and the schooner 
Carolina, Captain Hunley, dropped down the river, took a position near the 
enemy's camp, and opened a brisk, destructive fire upon them, from the 
severity of which they were glad to shelter themselves by retiring into the 
swamp. In the night, however, they erected a furnace and battery at a con- 
venient distance on shore, and were ready at daylight on the 27th to com- 



I 



« 



PACKENHAM ARRIVES ON THE SCENE. 495 

mence a fire of red-hot shot on the assailing vessels. The ship was out of 
their reach, but the schooner being becalmed within the range of their guns, 
and prevented from ascending by the strength of the current, Captain 
Hunley was compelled to abandon her, and she soon afterward took fire and 
was blown up. 

Sir Edward Packenham, commander-in-chief, having now arrived and 
brought up large re-enforcements to the British camp, they resolved on mak- 
ing a demonstration on our works, with a view to effect something important 
and decisive. On the 28th, they advanced with their whole force, and com- 
menced a tremendous cannonade and bombardment of our lines. Balls, 
shells, and congreve rockets were thrown in showers on the breastwork, and 
over the heads of our troops. Their columns were formed and brought up, 
apparently with the intention of storming our works on the left. But their fire 
was returned with great spirit and vivacity by our batteries, which compelled 
them, after three hours of incessant cannonading, and fruitless exposure of 
their lines, to retire with disappointment to their camp. Their expectations 
appeared to be that their tremendous cannonade and great quantity of com- 
bustibles thrown on our works would frighten away the militia, or throw 
them into confusion, and thus afford a favorable opportunity for making an 
assault. But the firmness and cool intrepidity of our troops, combined with 
the destructive fire of our batteries, kept them at a respectful distance, and 
at last compelled them to abandon the enterprise. Their loss on this occasion 
was considerable— not less than one hundred and twenty killed, while ours 
was but seven killed and eight wounded. Lieutenant Henderson, of the 
Tennessee militia, was among the slain. For several days after this affair 
nothing important occurred. Skirmishes occasionally took place between 
the picket guards, and the enemy's camp was sometimes annoyed by the ship 
Louisiana. 

Though disappointed in their expectations on the 28th, they did not 
abandon the project of forcing our lines, but prepared for a more formidable 
attack on Sunday morning, the ist of January. Admiral Cochran, the 
naval commander, had sent us word, on his arrival off the coast, that he 
would eat his Christmas dinner in New Orleans; and General Packenham 
now resolved at least to spend his New Year in the city. Lender cover of 
the night, and a heavy fog which continued until eight o'clock in the morn- 
ing, the enemy advanced within six hundred yards of our works, being con- 
siderably nearer than they had come before, and there erected three different 
batteries, mounting in all fifteen guns, from six to thirty-two pounders, and as 
soon as the fog had cleared away in the morning they commenced a heavy 
and incessant fire, throwing shot, bombs, and rockets in showers at our 
works. They also essayed again to advance to the assault in column, but 
the steady and skillful fire of our batteries soon arrested their progress and 
put them to flight. An incessant cannonading, however, was continued 
throughout the day, until late in the evening, when our balls had dismounted 



496 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and silenced nearly all of their guns. Under cover of the night, they again 
withdrew from the unprofitable contest. Our loss on this day was eleven 
killed and twenty-three wounded; while that of the enemy, from their very 
exposed situation, must have been severely great. 

The opposite side of the river, or the right bank, now became an object 
of attention with both armies. Commodore Patterson had landed some of 
the guns of the Louisiana, and erected a battery on the bank, opposite the 
main works on the left side, for the purpose of co-operating with the right 
of our lines, and flanking the enemy in his advance up the river to attack 
them. After the affair on the ist of January, the battery was enlarged by 
landing and mounting more guns, and a furnace was prepared to heat shot, 
with a view to fire the houses between the two armies, which were occupied 
by the British. The Louisiana militia and New Orleans contingent were 
also stationed at that place under General D. B. Morgan, for the purpose 
of repelling any attack on the battery, or any attempt to move up on that 
side and annoy the city across the river, which the enemy might make. On 
the 4th, General Morgan began to throw up a breastwork, and mounted 
three twelve-pounders for the defense of his troops.. On the 4th, also, the 
Kentucky detachment under General Thomas arrived at the city. They 
were nearly destitute of arms, for they had brought but a few with them 
from home, and those which had been shipped in trading-boats at Pittsburgh 
had not yet arrived. They were ordered to encamp at the canal of Madame 
Piernass, one mile above the American lines, until they could be equipped 
for service. The city was now ransacked for arms to supply the Kentuck- 
ians. By the 7th, a sufficient number was collected and repaired, together 
with a loan obtained by General Adair from a corps of exempts, to arm the 
regiment commanded by Colonel Slaughter, and the battalion under Major 
Harrison. These corps, one thousand strong, were then marched down to 
the lines, under the command of General Adair, Major-General Thomas 
being unwell, and were posted immediately in the rear of General Carroll's 
division, to support the center of our works. 

The enemy in the meantime were engaged, on the suggestion of Admiral 
Cochrane, in enlarging a canal which connected the Mississippi with bayou 
Bienvenue, to enable them to draw their boats through it into the river, and 
make an attack on our establishment under Patterson and Morgan. On the 
7th, their operations were reconnoitered across the river by the commodore, 
who ascertained in the evening that they had nearly completed the under- 
taking. He immediately communicated this information to Jackson, with a 
request that re-enforcements might be sent over, to assist in the defense of 
his position. The general accordingly ordered four hundred of the unarmed 
Kentuckians, to go up to the city where they would be supplied with arms, 
and then come down on the opposite side to Morgan. It was in the night 
when they marched; and a supply of indifferent arms could be procured 
for no more than two hundred, who proceeded to their ])lace of destination, 



THE ENEMY REPULSED. 



497 



while the balance returned to camp. About one o'clock in the morning of 
the 8th, the commodore discovered that the enemy had gotten their barges 
into the river, and that an uncommon stir was prevailing in their camp, of 
which the commanding general was duly notified. 

No doubt now existed in the American camp, that another formidable 
attack was on the point of being carried into execution on both sides of the 
river. As the enemy had already been twice repulsed, it was reasonable to 
expect that his third attempt would be desperate and bloody. Our main 
army, however, was well prepared to receive him, and anxious for an assault 
to be made. The whole extent of our works, about eighteen hundred yards 
from the river to the swamp, was well finished, well manned with brave 
soldiers, and well defended with artillery. The regulars, with part of the 
militia from Louisiana, occupied six hundred yards on the right, next to the 
river; General Carroll's division occupied eight hundred yards in the center, 
and General Coffee defended the balance of the works on the left. The 
Kentuckians, formed in two lines, occupied four hundred yards in the center, 
close in the rear of General Carroll's command. 

As soon as the dawn of day enabled us to see some distance in front of 
our lines, the enemy were discovered advancing in great force, formed in 
two powerful columns on the right and left, and prepared with fascines and 
scaling-ladders to storm our works. Their left column, which was the least, 
was led up the bank of the river by General Keane, while their main col- 
umn was conducted against the center of our works by General Gibbs. A 
third column was held in reserve, under the command of General Lambert. 
The ground over which they had to march to the assault was a perfect level, 
beautifully overgrown with clover, and without any intervening obstruction 
whatever. The signal for the onset was the discharge of a rocket from the 
head of their column next the river, when their whole force rent the air with 
a shout, and advanced briskly to the charge. A tremendous cannonade was 
at the same time opened on our works from their mortars and field artillery, 
and from a battery of six eighteen-pounders, which they had erected within 
five hundred yards of our lines. 

Their attack was received by our troops with the utmost firmness and 
bravery, and their fire immediately returned by the artillery on our works, 
under the direction of deliberate and skillful officers, who tore their columns, 
as they approached, with a frightful carnage. As soon as the heads of their 
columns had arrived within the range of our small arms, they were assailed 
in a manner still more destructive, by the steady, deliberate, well-aimed fire 
of our rifles and musketry. Though they advanced under this havoc with 
firmness and intrepidity, yet, ere they could reach our works, they were 
thrown into confusion and repulsed. But the brave officers who led them 
soon rallied their flying troops, reformed their shattered columns, and led 
them the second time to the charge, with renovated vigor and fury. In vain 
\vas their bravery, in vain the utmost exertion of their powers; they only 

32 



498 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

renewed the charge to suffer a new repulse, with redoubled carnage. Their 
principal column advancing against the center of our works was opposed 
by the strongest part of our lines, consisting of Tennessee and Kentucky 
marksmen, at least six men deep. These poured forth a sheet of fire, which 
cut down the ranks of the enemy like grass by the scythe of a mower. Yet 
their heavy columns pressed on with such force and desperation, that many 
of their men at last entered the ditch in front of our breastworks, where 
they were shot down in heaps at the very muzzles of our guns. 

Slaughtered, shattered, and disordered, they were again forced to retire. 
Their leaders, however, apparently resolved on victory or total destruction, 
again rallied and brought them up a third time to the charge. But their 
principal officers being now slain and disabled, and their strength greatly 
broken and spent, this last effort was less successful than the former. They 
were soon forced to fall back in disorder on their column of reserve, with 
which they pursued a precipitate and disorderly retreat to their camp, under 
a galling fire from our batteries, leaving the field covered with the dying 
and the dead. General Packenham was killed, and Generals Keane and 
Gibbs were both severely wounded, the latter of whom died a few days 
afterward. Colonel Rannie was also killed, a brave and intrepid officer, 
who, in the second charge, entered the bastion on our right, at the head of 
his men, but was immediately slain and his followers repulsed by our brave 
regulars and Beale's company of city riflemen. The action lasted about an 
hour, and terminated in a decisive and total defeat of the enemy. 

On the other side of the river our armies experienced a reverse. The 
battery erected by Commodore Patterson was constructed for annoying the 
enemy across the river, and raking the front of our works on the left side. 
During the attack this morning it was employed in that way with consider- 
able effect. But before the action ceased on the left, an attack was also 
made on the right bank. The eighty-fifth regiment, with some seamen and 
marines, having crossed the river opposite the British camp, and led by Col- 
onel Thornton, advanced under cover of some field pieces, and put to flight 
some troops commanded by Major Arno, who had been sent down to oppose 
their landing. Continuing their march up the river, they next attacked the 
two hundred Kentuckians under Colonel Davis, who had been sent half a 
mile in front of our works to oppose them. After a sharp skirmish. Colonel 
Davis retreated by order of General Morgan, with the loss of about thirty 
men, in killed, wounded, and missing. Having reached the entrenchment, 
he was ordered to post his men on the right of the Louisiana militia. The 
guns in the battle could not be employed against Colonel Thornton until 
they were turned in their embrasures, which was not undertaken until it was 
too late to accomplish it before the charge was made. General Morgan had 
five hundred Louisiana militia safely posted behind a finished breastwork, 
which extended two hundred yards from the battery, at right angles to 
the river, and was defended by three pieces of artillery. The one hundred 



KENTUCKIANS WRONGFULLY BLAMED. 



499 



and seventy remaining Kentuckians on his right were scattered along a ditch 
three hundred yards in extent, and still further on the right there were sev- 
eral hundred yards of open ground entirely undefended. In this situation 
of things, the enemy, with steady pace, continued advancing to the charge 
in two columns, under the cover of a shower of rockets. Their right column, 
advancing next the river, was thrown into disorder and driven back by 
Morgan's artillery; the other, advancing against the Kentuckians, was re- 
sisted by their small arms till a party of the assailants had turned their right 
flank and commenced a fire on their rear. Overpowered by numbers in 
front, assailed in their rear, and unsupported by their companions in arms, 
they were at last compelled to retreat from their untenable position. The 
Louisiana militia then retreated also from their breastwork and artillery be- 
fore they had felt the pressure of the enemy. Commodore Patterson, per- 
ceiving how the contest would issue, spiked his cannon, and was ready to 
join in the retreat with his marines. The enemy pursued them some dis- 
tance up the river, and then returned to destroy the battery and other works. 

Patterson and Morgan were conscious that they had acted badly, the 
former in not turning his guns in time, and the latter in leaving his right 
flank weak, uncovered, and unsupported, while his main force was uselessly 
concentrated behind the breastwork. They determined to throw the whole 
blame of the defeat on the handful of Kentuckians who had the misfortune 
to be present and to do all the fighting that was done, except a few dis- 
charges from the artillery. They induced General Jackson to report to the 
war department that "the Kentucky re-enforcement ingloriously fled, draw- 
ing after them, by their example, the remainder of the forces," and the 
commodore, in his report to the navy department, stigmatized them in terms 
still more offensive. A court of inquiry was demanded by Colonel Davis, 
before which the facts were proven as above detailed. The court, how- 
ever, merely pronounced the Kentuckians excusable. This being deemed 
unsatisfactory, General Adair again pressed the subject on the commander- 
in-chief, and at last obtained a dry, reluctant sentence of justification. The 
detachment did all, at least, that could be expected from brave men, if it 
was not entitled to the praise of uncommon gallantry. 

Our victory on the left bank of the river was very complete and decisive. 
The inequality of loss in the opposing armies was probably unparalleled in 
the annals of warfare ; ours being only six killed and seven wounded in the 
main battle, while that of the enemy was estimated at two thousand six hun- 
dred in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Immediately after the action an i 
armistice for a few hours was craved and obtained by the enemy, for the 
purpose of burying their dead and taking care of the wounded. A line 
was then designated across the field of battle, to which they were allowed to 
come; and between that line and the breastwork, four hundred and eighty- 
two dead bodies were counted and carried out, while it was estimated that 
upward of two hundred lay upon the outside of it. The killed was, there- 



500 HISTORY OF KENTUCKV. 

fore, set down at seven hundred; and supposing, as usual, that twice that 
number were wounded, the whole killed and wounded would be twenty-one 
hundred; five hundred prisoners were captured, making a total of twenty- 
six hundred. 

Lieutenant-General Packenham, who was killed, was an officer of great 
distinction. He was brother-in-law to the celebrated Lord Wellington, un- 
der whom he had been trained. Most of the troops he commanded had 
also fought and signalized themselves under that commander in Spain. Our 
effective force engaged at the works, according to the official returns, was a 
little upward of four thousand, of which two thousand were Tennesse mili- 
tia, one thousand Kentucky militia, and more than one thousand regulars 
and Louisiana militia. The force engaged on the part of the enemy wa> 
not known, but his whole number present was believed to be between eight 
and ten thousand, the original force of the expedition having been much 
above those figures. 

Though the enemy succeeded in their enterprise upon the right bank 
of the river, they met with considerable loss there also. Their killed and 
wounded in that affair being near one hundred; among the latter. Colonel 
Thornton, severely. Our loss was comparatively small, perhaps not half 
that number. 

After setting fire, not only to the platform and carriages of the battery, 
but to all the private dwelling-houses for several miles along the river, tht 
detachment retreated over to the main camp, carrying with them two field 
pieces and a brass howitzer. The object of the enterprise was to wrest tht 
battery from Patterson before the main attack was made, with a view to 
employ it in raking Jackson's line, instead of flanking their own columns. 
From some cause, the detachment did not get over the river as soon as they 
intended, and in time to prevent the battery from answering the purpose for 
which it had been erected. Morgan and Patterson immediately reoccupied 
their old position, when the enemy retreated. They began to drill the can- 
non and repair the works, and in a few days were again ready for efficient 
service. 

On the day after the great battle, an attack was made by the enemy on 
Fort St. Philip, commanded by Major Overton, with a view to bring their 
armed vessels up the river, to co-operate with the land forces in the capturc 
of the city. Major Overton received intelligence of their intention as early 
as the ist of January, and was well prepared. They doubtless had intended 
to carry the fort, and get up the river in time for the main contest, but were 
prevented by the difficulty of ascending. 

On the 9th, two bomb-vessels, a brig, a sloop, and a schooner came to 
anchor about two miles below the fort, and commenced an attack with sea- 
mortars of ten and thirty inches caliber. They continued the bombardment 
nine days without intermission, and without molestation, for their position 
was beyond the range of the guns in the fort. In this period they threw 



THE ENEMY S KETREAT. 5OI 

upward of one thousand large shells, besides a great many small ones, with 
round and grapeshot, from boats, under cover of the night. A large mor- 
tar, in the meantime, was sent down to the fort, and in the evening of the 
17th was brought to bear upon their vessels, which induced them to with- 
draw at daylight next morning. The loss in the fort was two killed and 
seven wounded, so judicious had been the preparations and policy of Major 
Overton to meet the attack. 

As soon as intelligence of the attack had been brought to headquarters, 
a battery, mounting four twenty-four pounders, with furnace to heat shot, 
had been erected to burn the shipping of the enemy should they succeed in 
capturing the fort, or in passing it with their armed vessels. 

Preparations were now making by General Lambert and Admiral Coch- 
rane for a retreat. An exchange of prisoners took place on the i8th, by 
which all our men who had been captured and not sent to the shipping 
were recovered and restored to their country. In the night of that day, the 
enemy made good their retreat from the banks of the Mississippi to their 
boats and small vessels, and commenced embarking their troops and bag- 
gage for their large vessels, still lying off Ship island, in the Gulf of Mexico. 
In their camp, they left fourteen pieces of heavy artillery, a quantity of shot, 
and eighty of their wounded, with a surgeon to attend them, all of whom 
had been so disabled in their limbs that recovery would not render them 
fit for service. The retreat was not accomplished without molestation. 
Such was the situation of the ground which they abandoned, and through 
which they passed, protected by canals, redoubts, entrenchments, and 
swamps, that General Jackson did not think proper to press upon them in 
the rear with his whole force. But an enterprise was successfully conducted 
against their light vessels on the lake by Mr. Shields, the purser of the navy. 
After the battle of the gunboats, Mr. Shields had been sent down under a 
flag of truce, to ascertain the fate of our officers and men, with power to 
negotiate an exchange, especially for the wounded. But the enemy would 
make no terms. They treated the flag with contempt, and himself and the 
surgeon who was with him as prisoners. Before they retreated, however, 
they lowered their tone, and begged the exchange that we had offered. 
Defeat had thus humbled the arrogance of an enemy who had promised his 
soldiers ^^forty-eight hours of pillage and rapine in the city of Neiv Orleans ^ 

When the intention of the enemy to retreat was discovered, Mr. Shields 
was sent out through Pass Chef Mentiere, in five armed boats and a gig, 
manned with fifty sailors and militia, to aijnoy their transports on Lake 
Borgue. This service he undertook with great alacrity, as he was anxious 
to avenge the personal insults and injuries he had experienced. He suc- 
ceeded, without loss on his part, in capturing and destroying a transport 
brig and two boats, and bringing in eighty prisoners, besides capturing sev- 
eral other boats and a number of prisoners whom he was obliged to parole. 



502 



HISTORY OF KENTL'CKY. 



CHAPTER XXY, 

(1816-46.) 



Belligerent period, 1775-1815. 

Of peace, 1815-46. 

Inventors — John Fitch, Rumsey, West, 
Barlow, and Kelly, the inventor of the 
Bessemer steel process. 

Madison made governor, 1816. 

His messages. 

Chickasaw purchase. 

Virginia's claims to lands. 

The Kentucky and Tennessee boundary 
settled. 

Financial distress. 

Forty banks chartered. 

Rapid failures of same. 

Bank of the Commonwealth chartered 
in 1821. 

Depreciation of its bills. 

Relief and anti-relief measures. 

Old Court and New Court contest. 

Final issues. 

Census of 1820. 

Manufacturing in Kentucky. 

Oddities of legislation. 

Desha governor, 1824. 

Protests against assumptions of United 
States banks and Federal courts. 

Metcalfe defeats Barry for governor, in 
1828. 

Jackson defeats Adams for president. 

Exciting issues. 

Clay involved for Adams. 

President Jackson destroys the United 
States bank. 

New State banks. 

Inflation, followed by collapse, 1837 to 
1840. 

Internal improvement system of Ken- 
tucky. 

Turnpikes. 

River navigation. 

State aid. 

Canal at Falls of Ohio. 



State and Federal aid. 

Now owned by United States. 

First railroad built in United States. 

Experiments at Lexington, in 1831 

Ludicrous mistakes. 

First train to Frankfort, in 1835. 

Religion and its progress since 1800. 

Small schisms in the Baptist Churcii, ir 
1803 and 1809. 

Elder Vaughn. 

Baptist statistics. 

Georgetown College. 

Presidents, D. R. Campbell, B. Manly, 
and R. M. Dudley. 

Other Baptist colleges. 

Theological seminary. 

Thomas P. Dudley. 

Christian Church. 

Alexander Campbell. 

Preacliing and doctrines. 

B. W. Stone. 

Union, in 1832. 

Campbell's great debates. 

Statement of views. 

John T. Johnson. 

John Smith. 

Kentucky University. 

Other colleges. 

Presbyterian Church. 

Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 

Membership in Western Kentucky and 
Tennessee. 

Doctrines and organizafion. 

Parent Presbyterian Church. 

New School schism in 1838. 

Conciliation and union in 1857. 

Political feeling causes another division, 
sectional. 

"Declaration and testimony" of 1865. 

Separation and union witli the Southern 
Assembly at Mobile, in 1869. 

Leaders of North and South divisions. 



II 



THE INVENTORS OF KENTUCKY. 



503 



Southern Church founds Central Uni- 
versity at Richmond. 

History of this institution. 

R. L. Breck, first chancellor. 

L. H. Blanton, his successor. 

Its endowers and promoters. 

Statistics of this church. 

Centre College. 

Its age and work. 

Presidents John C. Young and Ormond 
Beatty. 

Faculty. 

Finances. 

Statistics of the Northern Presbyterian 
Church. 

Catholic Church. 

History and work. 

Archbishop Spalding. 

Methodist Church. 

Growth and work. 

Bishops Henry B. Bascom and Hubbard 
H. Kavanaugh. 

North and South divisions of the Meth- 
)dist Church. 



Statistics. 

Augusta College. 

Millersburg College. 

State College. 

Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal 
departments. 

Breathitt governor, 1832. 

Jackson defeats Clay for the nomina- 
tion for president. 

Clark governor in 1836; Letcher in 
1840. 

Van Buren president in 1836; Harri- 
son in 1840. 

Financial disorders, 1837-42. 

Banking experiments. 

Issues of Clay campaign. 

Relative increase of white and black 
population. 

Causes. 

Abolition agitations. 

" Underground railroad." 

Cassius M. Clay. 

His printing-office destroyed by a mob 
in 1845. 



With the termination of the second war with England, in 18 15, ended 
ivhat may be termed the belHgerent period of forty years of domestic and 
foreign strife in Kentucky history. The present chapter introduces us to 
in entirely opposite period of peace, which embraces the succeeding thirty 
^ears. In this era of more fortunate repose, we are called upon to give the 
greater emphasis and attention in the pages of our history to questions of 
statesmanship, of social and industrial development, and of science and art, 
ft'hich engrossed the public mind in the absence of military procedures and 
ichievements. 

Already, the inventive genius of Kentucky citizens had achieved results 
rt'hich have spread their fame throughout the enlightened world. We have 
mentioned before the adventurous visit to Kentucky of John Fitch, the first 
practical inventor of steamboats, and his capture by the Indians, in very 
;arly pioneer days. He was a surveyor, and pre empted one thousand 
icres of land on Simpson's creek, in Nelson county, for himself, and located 
ilso for others. He was possessed of an original and inventive mind. While 
Dn the banks of the Ohio, beholding with admiration the broad and beau- 
:iful river, the thought came to him, like an inspiration, that the divine hand 
lad not fashioned such a magnificent stream of water without designing 
t for some nobler purposes of navigation than had hitherto been applied. 
A.lready, under the inventions of Watts, steam was being used as a motive 



504 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

power in the mills of England; and the genius of invention on both shores 
of the Atlantic for years had been busy with experiments to multiply and) 
extend this revolutionizing motor to the uses of navigation. Fitch com-i 
pleted his first steamboat, and announced it ready for a trial trip on the 
Delaware river, in 1786. The propelling instruments were paddles sus-* 
pended by the upper ends of their shafts, and moved by a series of cranks. 
The boat was sixty feet in length. The trial trip was a success. Other 
steamers were built by Fitch in 1787-88-89, and run between Philadel- 
phia and Burlington, making a speed from four to seven and a half miles 
an hour. As early as 1785, he had vainly petitioned Congress, and the' 
Legislatures of several States, to grant him aid to perfect and practically 
apply his inventions. In manuscripts opened after his death, he touchingly 
says: "The day will come when some more powerful man will get fame 
and riches from my invention; but nobody will believe X\\a.\. poor John Fitch 
can do anything worthy of attention." He resumed his experiments in 
1796, in New York, using a screen. James Rumsey, a Virginian, who 
emigrated to Kentucky, was engaged in experiments in the United States 
of the same character as early as 1784, and in 1786 drove a boat on the 
Potomac, near Shepherdstown, at the rate of four miles an hour, by means 
of a water jet forced out at the stern. Rumsey subsequently went to Eng- 
land, and continued his experiments on the Thames. 

As early as 1783, an authority states that Fitch and Rumsey, without con- 
nection or acquaintance, executed plans for steam vessels on the great rivers 
and lakes, and along the indented seacoast. A spirited and heated contro- 
versy between the two was carried on, as to who first successfully applied 
the new motor to the propulsion of boats. Mr. Fitch assured a friend that 
on his way from Kentucky to Philadelphia, in passing through Winchester, 
Va., he met Mr. Rumsey, and in conversation disclosed to him his inven- 
tion, and his purpose in going East with it. In 1813, Robert Fulton was 
defeated in a suit in New York to enforce his claim to the original invention 
of steam navigation, by the opposing counsel producing in court a pamphlet 
of Fitch's, which proved certainly that both Fitch and Rumsey had prior 
claims.^ After full investigation, there remains no reason to doubt that 
Fitch was the first practical inventor of the steamboat. Disappointed and 
despondent, about 1796, he returned to his home near Bardstown, Ken- 
tucky, and gave himself up to ruinous intemperance, and died a few years 
after. His remains lie buried in the town graveyard. 

Edward West, of Lexington, constructed a steamboat on a small scale, 
in 1794; and in the presence of hundreds of citizens he had the gratification 
to see it move with rapidity through the water, in an experimental trial on 
the Lower Fork of Elkhorn, previously dammed up near the center of the 
city of Lexington. In 1802, he had patented, on the same day, his steam- 
boat invention, a gun-lock, and a nail-cutting and heading machine. The 

I American Cyclopedia. Collins, Vol. II., p. 649. 



THE "BESSKMER STEEL PROCESS." 505 

itter was the first ever invented, and in twelve hours cut over five thousand 
ounds of nails. It enabled Lexington at that day to export nails to Louis- 
ille, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. ^ Thus Kentucky was the home and burial 
lace of the first inventors of steam as a motor for the purposes of naviga- 
on. 

But the most fertile genius of invention that Lexington produced was 
'homas H. Barlow. In 1827, he built a model locomotive for a railroad, 
ith car attached for two passengers, with power to ascend an elevation of 
ighty feet to the mile. His most complex and wonderful production was 
;arlow's Planetarium, showing the planets and their most minute fractional 
?lative revolutions. This was the only instrument in the world that perfectly 
nitated the motions of the solar system. In 1840, Mr. Barlow invented a 
fled cannon, which is believed to have originated or suggested most of the 
fled guns patented in this country and Europe. Another of his inventions 
as a nail and tack machine, which was promptly purchased and utilized by 
apitalists. 

Kentucky must be credited within her borders and by one of her citizens 
'ith another of the most important inventions of the age, the discover)- of 
le pneumatic process of converting pig-iron into steel, now known world- 
ide as the " Bessemer Process." In 1846, William Kelly, formerly of Pitts- 
urgh, located near Eddyville, on the Cumberland river, and engaged in 
le manufacture of iron, operating two furnaces, the Suwanee and Union, 
"hese became well known for the large sugar kettles manufactured at the 
)rmer furnace for the planters of Louisiana, and for the superior charcoal 
loom of the latter. He was a man of remarkable originality and fertility 
f mind. Becoming dissatisfied with the results of slave or negro labor, 
'hich he was compelled mainly to rely on in Kentucky, he conceived and 
entured the experiment of substituting it with Chinese labor, then an entire 
ovelty in the country. Through a New York tea house he succeeded in 
nporting a first installment of ten. The arrival created much curious ex- 
itement; and especially to the negroes the appearance of the pig-tailed 
'elestials was the occasion of irrepressible merriment and sport. Fifty 
lore were soon to follow, but a rupture with the Chinese Government put 
n end to importation for the time. Mr. Kelly's knowledge of chemistry 
nd metallurgy led to investigation and experiments looking to the improve- 
lent of old methods of iron manufacture; and to conceive the idea that the 
rude metal could be at once converted into malleable iron or steel, without 
le use of fuel, by simply taking the fluid metal from the ordinary furnace 
nd placing it in a suitably-constructed furnace or convertor, then by apply- 
ig powerful blasts of air from beneath and through the molten mass, effect 
combination of the oxygen of the air with the carbon of the metal, thus 
reducing combustion, and decarbonizing and refining the iron ; or, if found 
esirable, to discontinue the process at a point where sufficient carbon would 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 174. 



5o6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

be left in the iron to make it steel. When he announced his theory to his 
forgemen — who had always known the iron chilled by air blown only over 
its surface — that he would boil metal by simply blowing air through it, they 
were incredulous, and naturally believed it would be chilled. 

These veteran forgemen did not know of the affinity of oxygen with carbon 
to produce combustion and heat, a common principle of chemistry. They 
had consumed enormous quantities of charcoal fuel to produce this result 
of greater heat, and at great cost to production. They were not less sur- 
prised than convinced, therefore, when the experiment of forcing currents 
of air through the molten iron intensified the mass to incandescent heat, and 
that the effect was to decarbonize and refine the metal without the use of a 
pound more of fuel. Thus again the knowledge of the scientist triumphed 
over the experience of the artisan. Mr. Kelly made his demonstration in 
1 85 1, some four years after his first conceptions, and used it to advantage 
in his business for years. Situated in what was then almost a wilderness, 
and the nearest country press even thirty miles away, he was too isolated 
to take advantage of the invention, and to advertise it to the world. But 
such an important discovery could not long be hid away, even in this soli- 
tude. There were some English iron-workers present who took much interest 
in the experiment, and predicted that the "new process" would "soon 
make itself felt, and supersede all others." In 1856, Henry Bessemer, an 
iron manufacturer of England, got out in that country the first patent for 
the pneumatic process^ to which his name has been given. He secured 
patents the same year in this country. More than a year before Bessemer 
was heard of, many steamboats on the Ohio river, chiefly built at Cincin- 
nati, were using boiler-plates similar to the "Bessemer boiler-plates," made 
from iron prepared by " Kelly's air-boiling process." Mr. Kelly attempted 
to anticipate Bessemer in getting out a patent in the United States, but was 
delayed by the bad faith of an attorney to whom the matter was entrusted, 
and for whom Bessemer had out-bid. A caveat was granted by the Patent 
Ofiice, the claim heard by the commissioner, who decided that Kelly was 
the inventor and entitled to the patent, which was issued. These expired 
in 187 1, when all applications for renewal were rejected, except to Mr. 
Kelly, whose patent was revived for seven years, as he was adjudged the 
first inventor. 

In the meantime, there were serious defects to be overcome in both the 
inventions of Kelly and Bessemer. This was successfully done by R. F. 
Mushet, of Cheltenham, England, who, on September 22, 1856, took out a 
patent for an improved process of adding to the pneumatized molten iron 
a molten triple compound of iron, carbon, and manganese, of from one to 
five per cent., overcoming the obstacle. It was in time found to the interest 
of all to consolidate the patents of Kelly, Bessemer, and Mushet, which was 
done ; and Mr. Kelly, long residing in Louisville, received a royalty on his 
interests in the inventions. The incalculable importance of this invention 



RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE GOVERNOR 507 

nay be conceived in noting tlie fact that, before the process, steel com- 
nanded five times the price of iron ; now, steel rails, with four times the 
vear of iron, are made at a difference of only three dollars per ton. The 
Jnited States, which formerly imported nearly all her steel, is now the 
argest steel-producing country in the world. 

In 18 1 6, George Madison was elected governor and Gabriel Slaughter lieu- 
enant-governor of Kentucky. In October, Madison having died. Slaughter 
ucceeded him, and was duly installed, after an excited controversy as to 
kOiether he should become governor by succession, or the Legislature should 
irder a new election. Among the topics of interest in his message, he 
lludes to, and furnishes, correspondence which he had with the governors 
if Ohio and Indiana, touching the difficulties experienced by citizens in 
egaining their slaves who escaped over the Ohio river, which was of the 
iiost satisfactory character. The advisability of establishing an armory is 
nentioned, and also that the condition of the pecuniary affairs of the peni- 
entiary were prosperous. 

He suggests the renovation and extension of the prison, the urgency 
if a more efficient guard, and the furnishing of prisoners with Bibles and 
looks of moral literature, and with religious instruction ; advising that all 
vho learn good trades and conduct themselves well should have, at their 
lischarge, a small compensation out of the profits of the institution, to pur- 
hase tools and enable them to commence business. He very lengthily ad- 
ocates aid and encouragement, both to higher institutions of learning and 
a system of popular schools over the State. He recommends a revision 
if the laws of escheat, under the belief that a large quantity of the lands 
if the Commonwealth is held by individuals or unsettled. A State library, 
le thinks, should be established at the capital; presses upon the attention 
if the Legislature to correct a growing evil in the sale of offices, by sheriffs 
.nd clerks, throughout the State, as a most reprehensible and immoral, as 
k'ell as injurious, practice. In view of the increase of steam navigation on 
he large rivers, he suggests that smaller streams might be made available 
or the same use, by an expenditure of a reasonable amount of money to 
emove obstructions and improve them. Steps also should prompdy be 
aken, in co-operation with the Federal Government, to extinguish the Li- 
lian title to that part of Kentucky Territory lying west of the Tennessee 
iver. 

This last was a question of importance; and now that the frontiersmen 
lad extended the white settlements westward to, or within, the borders ot 
his country, the last eastward of the Mississippi and southward of the Ohio 
)f the original Virginia grant, now transferred to Kentucky, to which the 
iboriginal tribes had not forfeited their claim by treaty stipulations, the 
lemand for negotiation and purchase of the same had become imperative, 
fhe Chickasaw nation owned the territory in both Kentucky and Tennessee 
)etween the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers, embracing some seven million 



5o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

acres of fertile lands. In October, 1818, the General Government effected 
a purchase of all this country, and the transfer of title from the Chickasaws 
to the United States, for an annuity of twenty thousand dollars, to be paid 
for fifteen years. The portion that fell to the jurisdiction of Kentucky now 
embraces, in solid body, the counties of McCracken, Marshall, Hickman, 
Ballard, Fulton, Graves, and Calloway, a section yet designated as "The 
Purchase." Un May, 1822, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, as commissioner from 
the State of Virginia, appeared before the Legislature of Kentucky, and 
solicited the appointment of commissioners, under the eighth article of the 
compact between the two States, to decide points of difference and interests 
yet remaining open. Among these points of importance, Virginia claimed 
the right to locate on the lands of the Chickasaw purchase, and west of the 
Tennessee river, the unsatisfied military bounty warrants of the officers and 
soldiers of the Virginia State line. Henry Clay was unanimously elected to 
act in conjunction with Mr. Leigh, and to make all necessary arrangements 
for such commission. By June 5th, they had agreed upon articles of con- 
vention, which the Legislature ratified on the i6th following. 

Since the irreconcilable differences between Dr. Walker, commissioner 
for Virginia, and Judge Richard Henderson, for North Carolina, appointed 
to run and locate the westward boundary line between Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, no mutual and satisfactory agreement could be arrived at between 
the two States, although several times the subject of legislative action and 
negotiation. In the Legislature of Kentucky, in January, 1818, a memorial 
to Congress was introduced, asking that body to adopt measures to deter- 
mine this annoying question. It seems to have been conceded that latitude 
36° 30' north was the proper line. The objection or delay on the part of 
Tennessee was on account of the effect it would have on individual rights 
to lands lying between the said latitude and what was Walker's line, in 
which strip of territory both States were exercising jurisdiction. This un- 
settled state was having a disorderly effect upon the establishment of new 
counties and other interests. However, by agreement, in 1821, William 
Steele, on the part of Kentucky, and Absalom Looney, for Tennessee, were 
constituted a commission, who finally effected the location upon the line 
named. 

2 In the meantime, the financial affairs of the civilized world were in a 
painful state of disorder. The long wars of the French revolution had ban- 
ished gold and silver from circulation as money, and had substituted an 
inflated paper currency, by which nominal prices were immensely enhanced. 
At the advent of peace, a restoration of specie payments, and the return 
of Europe to industrial pursuits, caused a great fall in the nominal value of 
commodities, accompanied by bankruptcy upon an enormous scale. In 
Kentucky, the violence of this crisis was enhanced by the charter of forty 
independent banks, with an aggregate capital of nearly ten million dollars, 

1 Collins, Vol. I., p. 30. 2 Collins, Vol. I., p. 318. . 



THE NEW STATE BANK. 509 

vhich were by law permitted to redeem their notes with the paper of the 
)ank of Kentucky, instead of specie. 

These banks were chartered at the session of 1 817-18. The bank of 
iCentucky had then resumed specie payments, and was in good credit. In 
he summer of 181 8, the State was flooded with the paper of these banks, 
rheir managers were generally without experience or knowledge of finance, 
md in some instances, destitute of common honesty. The consequences 
vere such as might have been anticipated. Speculation sprang up in all 
iirections. Large loans were rashly made and as rashly expended. Most 
)f these bubbles exploded within a year, and few were alive at the end of 
wo years. In the meantime, the pressure of debt became terrible, and the 
)0wer to replevy judgments was extended by the Legislature from three to 
welve months by an act passed at the session of 1819-20. During the 
ummer of 1820, the cry for further relief became overwhelming, and large 
najorities of both houses were pledged to some measure which should 
elieve the debtor from the consequences of his rashness. 

General Adair had been elected governor of Kentucky in 1820, and 
leartily concurred with the Legislature in the acts passed at the ensuing 
ession. The great cry of the people was for money, and their heaviest 
:omplaint was debt. Therefore, the Legislature of 1820-21 chartered the 
iank of the Commonwealth, which was relieved from all danger of suspen- 
ion, by not being required even to redeem its notes in specie. Its paper 
I'as made payable and receivable in the public debts and taxes, and certain 
ands owned by the State, south of Tennessee river, were pledged for the 
inal redemption of its notes. Its business was to pour out paper in pro- 
Lision, in order to make money plenty. The creditor was required to receive 
his bank paper in payment of his debt, and if he refused to do so, the debtor 
k'as authorized to replevy the debt for the space of two years. 

But these were not the only acts of this extravagant session. They had 
Iready one bank, the old Bank of Kentucky, then in good credit, its paper 
edeemable in specie, and its stock at par or nearly so. By the terms of its 
harter, the Legislature had the power of electing a number of directors, 
rhich gave the control of the board. This power was eagerly exercised 
luring this winter. An experienced conservative president and board were 
urned out by the Legislature, and a president and board elected who stood 
iledged, before their election, to receive the paper of the Bank of the Com- 
nonwealth in payment of the debts due the Bank of Kentucky. This was 
10 doubt intended to buoy up their bank, and sustain the credit of its paper. 
Jut the effect was instantly to strike down the value of the stock of the 
5ank of Kentucky to one-half its nominal value, and to entail upon it a 
uspension of specie payments. 

The paper of the new bank sank rapidly to one-half its nominal value, 
nd the creditor had his choice of two evils. One was to receive one-half 
lis debt in payment of the whole; and the other was to receive nothing at 



5IO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. ^ 

all for two years, and at the end of that time, to run the risk of new delays 
and of the bankruptcy of his securities. Great was the indignation of thai 
creditor at this wholesale confiscation of his property, and society rapidly 
arranged itself into two parties, called Relief and Anti-Relief. With the first' 
party were the great mass of debtors, and some brilliant members of the i 
bar, such as John Rowan, William T. Barry, and Solomon P. Sharp. A 
great majority of the YOting population swelled its ranks, and it was counte- 
nanced by the governor, and furnished with plausible arguments by the 
eminent lawyers already named, to whom may be added the name of Bibb. 
With the anti-relief party were ranged nearly all the mercantile class, a vast 
majority of the bar and bench, and a great majority of the better class of 
farmers. The mass of property and intelligence was drawn up in array 
against the mass of numbers, and an angry conflict commenced in the news- 
papers, upon the stump, in the taverns and highways, which gradually in- 
vaded the most private and domestic circles. Robert Wickliffe, of Fayette, 
George Robertson, since chief-justice of Kentucky, then an eminent lawy« 
of Garrard county, and Chilton Allan, an eminent lawyer of Clark, were 
early engaged in the conflict, and were regarded as leaders of the anti, 
relief party. 

The question of the power of the Legislature to pass the act was raised 
at an early day, and was quickly brought before the circuit courts. Judge 
Clark, of Clark county, boldly decided the act unconstitutional in the first 
case which came before him, and brought upon himself a tempest of indig- 
nation, which thoroughly tested the firmness of his character. He was sum- 
moned to appear before a called session of the Legislature, which was 
convened in the spring of 1822, and violent efforts were made to intimidate 
or remove him by address. The gallant judge defended his opinion with 
invincible firmness; and partly from a want of a constitutional majority, 
partly, perhaps, from the suggestion that the Legislature should await the 
decision of the Supreme Court of Kentucky upon the subject, the legisla- 
tive storm blew over, leaving the judge as it found him. He adhered 
steadily to his decision, and was quickly supported by Judge Blair, of Fay- 
ette, in an opinion replete with learning, temper, and eloquence. 

But all awaited the decision of the Supreme Court. That high tribunal 
was then occupied by John Boyle, chief-justice, and William Owsley and 
Benjamin Mills, associate judges. These gentlemen had passed the merid- 
ian of life, and had been drilled for a long series of years to the jjatient and 
abstract severity of judicial investigation. In simplicity and purity of char- 
acter, in profound legal knowledge, and in Roman-like firmness of purpose, 
the o/d Court of Appeals of Kentucky has seldom been surpassed. The 
question came directly before them in the case of Lapsley vs. Brashear, at 
the fall term, 1823, and their decision was awaited with intense anxiety by 
all parties. Terrible denunciations of popular vengeance in advance, if 
they dared to thwart the will of a \ast majority of the people, were intended 



DISSENSION AMONG THE PEOPLE. 5II 

to move their judgments or operate upon their fears. They had maintained 
an unbroken silence until called upon to act, but when the case came di- 
rectly before them, the judges delivered their opinion, seriatim and at 
length, and calmly concurred with their brethren of the circuit court that 
the act of the Legislature was in violation of the Constitution of the United 
States and totally void. The clause of the Constitution with which the act 
conflicted was that which prohibited the States from passing any law im- 
pairing the obligation of contracts. The opinion created an immense sen- 
sation in the State, and the conflict of parties was renewed with redoubled 
fury. 

The judiciary, by the Constitution, held their offices during good be- 
havior. Nothing less than two-thirds of both houses could remove them. 
Could they hope to obtain this majority? The canvass of 1824 was con- 
ducted with the hope of obtaining this result. General Joseph Desha was 
the candidate of the relief party for the office of governor, and canvassed the 
State with that energy and partisan vehemence for which he was remark- 
able. He was elected by an overwhelming majority. A vast majority of 
both houses were of the relief party. The governor and the Legislature met 
in December, with passions heated by the fierce canvass through which they 
had passed and the unsparing wounds which they had received from their 
enemies. The sword was fairly drawn, and the scabbard had been thrown 
away by both parties. So exasperated were the passions that the minority 
was as little disposed to ask quarter as the majority was to give it. The 
three judges were summoned before the legislative bar, and calmly assigned 
reasons at length for their decision. These reasons were replied to with 
great speciousness and subtlety, for the great talents of Rowan, Bibb, and 
Barry were at the command of the relief party, and their manifestoes were 
skillfully drawn. A vote was at length taken, and the constitutional major- 
ity of two-thirds could not be obtained. The minority exulted in the victory 
of the judges. 

But their adversaries were too much inflamed to be diverted from their 
purpose by ordinary impediments. The party, rapidly recovering from 
their first defeat, renewed the assault in a formidable direction, which had not 
been foreseen, and where success was clearly within their reach. The ma- 
jority could not remove the judges by impeachment or address, because 
their majority, although large, was not two-thirds of each house. But they 
could repeal the act by which the Court of Appeals had been organized, and 
pass an act organizing the court anew. The judges would then follow the 
court as in the case of the District Court and Court of Quarter Sessions, 
and a bare majority would sufifice to pass this act. A bill to this effect was 
drawn up and debated with intense excitement during three days, and three 
protracted night sessions. Wicklifife denounced the party, with fierce and 
passionate invective, as trampling upon the Constitution. Rowan replied 
with cold and stately subtlety. On the last night, the debate was protracted 



512 HISTORY OK KENTUCKY. 

until past midnight. The galleries were crowded with spectators as strongly 
e.xcited as the members. The bill was passed by a large majority in the 
House of Representatives, and by a nearly equal majority in the Senate. 

No time was lost in organizing the new court, which consisted of four 
judges. William T. Barry was chief-justice, and John Trimble, James Hag- 
gin, and Rezin H. Davidge were associate justices. Francis P. Blair was 
appointed clerk, and took forcible possession of the records of Achilles Sneed, 
the old clerk. The old court, in the meantime, denied the constitutionality 
of the act, and still continued to sit as a court of appeals and decide such 
causes as were brought before them. A great majority of the bar of Ken- 
tucky recognized them as the true court, and brought their causes by appeal 
before their tribunal. A great majority of the circuit judges obeyed their 
mandates as implicitly as if no reorganizing act had passed. A certain 
proportion of cases, however, were taken up to the new court, and some of 
the circuit judges obeyed their mandates exclusively, even refusing to recog- 
nize the old court. A few judges obeyed both, declining to decide which 
was the true court. 

This judicial anarchy could not possibly endure. The people, as the 
final arbiter, were again appealed to by both parties, and the names of relief 
and anti-relief became merged in the titles of new court and old court. Great 
activity was exerted in the canvass of 1825, and never were the passions of 
the people more violently excited. The result was the triumph of the old- 
court party by a large majority in the popular branch of the Legislature, 
while the Senate still remained attached to the new court, the reactionary 
impulse not having had tune to remold it. 

In consequence of this difference between the political complexion of the 
two houses, the reorganizing act still remained unrepealed, and the canvass 
of 1826 saw both parties again arrayed in a final struggle for the command 
of the Senate. The old-court party again triumphed, and at the ensuing 
session of the Legislature the obnoxious act was repealed, the opinion of 
the governor to the contrary notwithstanding, and the three old judges re- 
established, de facto as well as de jure. Their salaries were voted to them 
during the period of their forcible and illegal removal, and all the acts of 
the new court have ever been treated as a nullity. 

The census of 1820 reported the population of Kentucky at 564,317, an 
increase of thirty-six and one-third per cent, over that of the previous dec- 
ade. This ranked Kentucky as the sixth State in the Union in point of 
population. Of these, 434,644 were whites, 2,759 free colored, and 126,- 
732 slaves, showing the increase of the latter to be approximately fifty-seven 
per cent. The messages of the governors and other records of the time 
almost uninterruptedly point to the fact of uniformly propitious seasons and 
abundant harvests with which the generous and exuberant virgin soil of 
Kentucky rewarded the husbandman, and laid the foundation of general 
prosperity in all other industries. 



LOTTERY PRIVILEGES GRANTED. 513 

In 1820 and after, the greater number of the steamboats that pHed the 
Ohio and Mississippi and their navigable tributaries were owned by enter- 
prising citizens of the Commonwealth, engaged in a commerce of vast im- 
portance both in Europe and America. Already had there been developed 
a considerable amount of mechanical ingenuity, made of great practical 
utility and introduced into the industrial arts. Some of these inventions be- 
came of great value throughout the world. From 1817 to 1820, statistics 
show that there were some sixty factories in busy employ at Lexington, and 
about the same at Louisville. Over two millions of dollars of capital were 
invested in each city in these establishments, a considerable sum for that 
day. There were other important centers of manufacturing in the State, 
showing the early impetus and advantages, but which have not been fol- 
lowed up with that vigor and enterprise which might easily have made Ken- 
tucky, with her vast internal and natural resources of soil and climate, of 
mineral riches, and extended and varied forest growth, the first manufact- 
uring district west of the mountains. 

Among the oddities and inconsistencies of the legislation of these years 
were the repeated granting of lottery privileges for educational, benevolent, 
and even religious purposes — an offense to all disinterested and pure public 
sentiment, and dishonoring the fair name of the Commonwealth with making 
the General Assembly and executive the instruments of one of the most in- 
sidious and revolting forms of social vice. We find amid the statutes a 
lottery authorized to raise ten thousand dollars to improve Kentucky river, 
one to raise five thousand dollars to improve the Maysville and Lexington 
road, another to raise four thousand dollars to build a union house of wor- 
ship in Frankfort, another of twenty-five thousand to build a medical college 
at Lexington, and another for draining the ponds about Louisville. Yet, 
while engaging in this very disreputable encouragement to one of the most 
universally demoralizing species of gambling, the most honorable Assembly, 
in December, 1823, passed very stringent laws against gambling. To the 
immemorial and pernicious habit of special legislation indulged in by that 
body, we may properly attribute the inconsistency. 

Governor Joseph Desha, having entered upon his term of office in 1824, 
sought occasion to call attention to what appeared to be dangerous innova- 
tions or encroachments upon the rights of the State. He viewed with alarm 
the establishment of branches of the L^^nited States Bank within the Com- 
monwealth. When the laws of Kentucky demanded that these should be 
taxed, as other property, the judges of the Federal Court, assuming the 
prerogative of restricting the taxing power of the State, in a manner w-holly 
unlimited, issued their order and restrained the collection of the tax imposed 
by the Legislature. It was complained that a majority of the late Court of 
Appeals of the State, after maintaining that the United States Bank was 
unconstitutional, refused to carry the law imposing the tax into effect, because 
the United States Supreme Court, in a Maryland decision, had expressed a 

33 



514 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

contrary opinion. These banks had acquired property and power in the 
State, and yet were exempt from bearing their proportion of the burdens of 
government. 

These institutions had, for a series of years, carried on a systematic attack 
upon the legislative power of the State, for the double purpose of curtail- 
ing the sphere of its exercise and rendering themselves entirely free of its 
authority. In both State and Federal courts attacks were made on the 
validity of the State laws, in which the banks contended that they were not 
binding on the Federal courts, and could affect no contract which might be 
sued on in these tribunals. The power thus assumed and exercised by the 
Federal judges was viewed, both in principle and practice, as nothing short 
of despotism. 

It was also complained that the wrongs suffered by the United States Su- 
preme Court decision, declaring the occupant laws to be unconstitutional, had 
not been redressed. In the meantime, the baneful influence of the decision 
was spreading. At every term of the Federal court sitting at Frankfort, judg- 
ments and decrees were given against citizens for lands, and the houses and 
improvements made on same, sacrificing all, and in despite of State laws to 
the contrary. Others of State acts were as stubbornly disregarded. The 
faithful citizen, losing title, must also pay rents upon his own improvements, 
upon eviction, or, if unable, he must go to prison, under the rules of the 
court. He urged that the doctrine that the opinion of the Federal court, on 
subjects involving the rights of States, is binding and conclusive on State 
authorities, is not only erroneous, but fatal to the sovereignty of the State. 

Governor Desha also recommended the curtailment of salaries of officials, 
and of general expenditures, and by all means to avoid sinecures. The 
same policy of economy was suggested toward the officers of the Kentucky 
banks, as in many cases they seemed to be disproportioned to the services 
rendered. It was believed that many of the subordinate officers might be 
dispensed with, and the profits thus increased. These reductions were im- 
portant, as the improved value of the currency in which taxes were collected 
would much increase the burdens of the tax-payers. 

^The interest in State affairs, of late so exciting, seemed now to yield to 
the more absorbing issues of national politics. In the presidential contest 
of 1824, Mr. Adams had been elected over General Jackson by the vote of 
Mr. Clay and his friends from Kentucky and Missouri. ' The sentiment and 
sympathy of the West were mainly for Jackson, and this action under the 
lead of Clay gave great umbrage to the friends of the defeated contestant. 
On the appointment of Mr. Clay as secretary of state by Mr. Adams, and 
his identification with his administration, the resentful spirit of the opposi- 
tion fiercely and openly alleged that there were bargain and intrigue behind 
this support by Clay and appointment by Adams, and this charge entered 
largely into the discussions of the day. The old distrust of Massachusetts by 

1 Collins, Vol. I., p. 323. 



METCALFE ELECTED GOVERNOR. 515 

Kentucky was yet strong in the breasts of the people, and this had much to 
do with the prejudice to Adams. 

The new-court party zealously opposed the administration, and de- 
nounced Mr. Clay as an apostate from the ancient republican party, not- 
withstanding Adams himself had been of that party for twenty years. As 
earnestly and passionately did the old-court party rally to the support of Mr. 
Clay in the vote he gave, adhering to the administration. It soon became 
apparent that the old-court party was losing the predominance it had won 
in the former contest. The attraction and glare of military renown and 
the wondrous magnetism of Jackson gave inspiration to his friends, while 
the unpopular name of Adams was proving a dead weight to their opponents. 

^The great contest of 1828 was coming on, and nowhere was the excite- 
ment greater than in Kentucky. The gubernatorial election came off in 
August, and the National Republican, or old-court party, selected General 
Thomas Metcalfe as their candidate for governor, and the opposition, under 
the popular name of Democratic Republican, put forward WiUiam T. Barry 
as their leader. Metcalfe had begun life as a stonemason, and by his energy 
and talents had arisen to honor and distinction, having served ten years in 
Congress. His personal popularity was very great. Metcalfe was elected, 
but by a small majority, while the opposition carried their lieutenant-gov- 
ernor and a majority of the Legislature. In November, Jackson swept the 
State by a majority of eight thousand, and Adams was beaten in the United 
States by an overwhelming vote. Although Clay was not directly involved in 
the contest, yet the popular verdict was felt to have compromised him. Not- 
withstanding the plausible defense of friends of the course of Mr. Clay, the 
charges of collusion were reiterated by his enemies, and even openly re- 
peated by General Jackson himself. The intense feeling of the mutual hos- 
tility of parties, and the questionable influence of other leaders, led the 
party that had supported Mr. Adams to promptly rally on Clay as the most 
available man for the presidential struggle of 1832, in which indications 
already made it certain that Jackson would be a candidate for re-election. 

2 With Clay directly before the people, the "National Republican" party 
in Kentucky felt confident of regaining their ascendency in the State. His 
brilliant eloquence, his courage, his energy of character, his indomitable 
spirit, made him a fit competitor for Jackson, who possessed some of the 
same qualities in an equal degree. During the conflicts of 1829 and 1830, 
the Jackson supremacy was maintained in the Legislature and in the dele- 
gates to Congress, but in the fall of 1831, the Clay party, as it was called 
by many, obtained a majority in the Legislature, and this was strikingly made 
manifest to the Union by the election of Clay to the Senate of the United 
States. A majority of the congressional delegation, however, were still of 
the Democratic or Jackson party, and it was uncertain which party had ob- 
tained a majority of the popular vote. 

I Collins, Vol. I., p. 322. -■ Collins, Vol. I , p 324. 



5i6 



HISTORY f)F KENTUCKY, 




The great contest of 1832 came 
on. Jackson and Clay were the 
I ompetitors for the presidency, and 
Kentucky had to choose a suc- 
( L'-^sor to Metcalfe in the guberna- 
toiial chair. Judge Buckner was 
the candidate selected by the Na- 
tionals, and Breathitt by the Dem- 
01 tats or Jackson party. Great 
I liorts were made by both parties, 
and Breathitt was elected by more 
than one thousand votes. Immense 
rejoicings upon one side and bitter 
mortification upon the other were 
occasioned by this result. But the 
Nationals instantly called a con- 
vention, which was well attended, 
HENRY cu and organized for a decisive strug- 

gle in November, with a spirit exasperated, but not cowed, by their recent 
defeat. The Democrats also held a convention, and it became obvious that 
the preliminary trial of strength in August was only a prelude to the decisive 
conflict which was to come off in November. The intervening months were 
marked by prodigious activity on both sides, and the excitement became so 
engrossing that all ages and both sexes were drawn into the vortex. The 
result was a signal and overwhelming triumph of the National Republicans. 
The popular majority exceeded seven thousand, and the party which then 
triumphed held uninterrupted possession of political power in the State long 
years after. Although the triumph of Clay was complimentary in Kentucky, 
he was totally defeated by Jackson in the general election, and that popular 
chieftain was re-elected by a great majority. 

Though the intrepid spirit of Henry Clay sustained his prestige as the 
undaunted and unrivaled leader of his party and famed him as the most 
gifted orator and statesman of America, there was just appearing above the 
political and public horizon in Kentucky, in the decade of 1830-40, two 
characters whose genius, learning, and eloquence promised to rival the 
forensic splendors and powers of the Great Cotuffioner himself. The mas- 
terly logic, the vast and varied classical learning, the marvelous wealth of 
trope and metaphor, the beauty of rhetoric, the graceful elegance of phras- 
ing, the flights of fancy, and the keen shafts of satire with which the ora- 
tions and speeches of Thomas F. Marshall entranced his audiences are as 
familiar to many now living as household words. Nor do these forget how 
sadly the dazzling sun of this brilliant intellect too early sank behind the 
somber clouds of intemperance, whose holocaust of ruin has brought more 
of woe and desolation to the people of Kentucky than all wars, pesti- 



RICHARD H. MENEFEE. 



51? 




lences, and famines, and yet exists 
a blight upon our society and a dis- 
grace to our civilization. Fewer 
remember young Richard H. Men- 
efee, rivaling Patrick Henry in the 
fervor, and passion, and eloquence 
of oratory, and surpassing him in 
logic and in learning. With the 
flash of the meteor, his genius 
blazed athwart the political heavens 
for a little while, then faded out 
of view at the touch of that fell de- 
stroyer, consumption, in premature 
death. An extract from the eulogy 
of Thomas F. Marshall on the 
character of his rival — the tribute 
of one genius to the memory and 
virtues of another — will best de- thomas f, Marshall. 

scribe the two great orators, who then illustrated the forum of Kentucky. 

* "It is a public misfortune and an injustice to the fame of Richard H. 
Menefee, brilliant as it is, that his speeches in the Legislature were not pre- 
served. Regarding him, as I have already said, with the deepest interest, 
and under circumstances very favorable for observation, I described him as 
he impressed himself upon me. The great characteristic of his mind was 
strength, his predominant faculty was reason, the aim of his eloquence was to 
convince. With an imagination rich, but severe and chaste, of an elocution 
clear, nervous, and perfectly ready, he employed the one as the minister, and 
the other as the vehicle, of demonstration. He dealt not in gaudy ornaments 
or florid exhibition ; no gilded shower of metaphors drowned the sense of 
his discourse. He was capable of fervid invective, vehement declamation, 
and scathing scarcasm; but strength — strength was the pervading quality; 
and there was argument even in his denunciation. No giant form set forth 
his common height, no stentor voice proclaimed a braggart in debate ; yet 
he did possess the power of impression — deep, lasting impression — of in- 
teresting you, not only in what he said, but in himself, of stamping upon the 
memory his own image, in the most eminent degree, and the most ex- 
traordinary manner, of any man of his age whom it has been my fortune to 
encounter. 

"The same destiny attended him in Congress which had marked his en- 
trance upon State legislation. There were no gradations in his congressional 
history. He comprehended at once, and as if by instinct, the new scene in 
which he was called to act, and no sooner did he appear than he was recog- 

I Eulogy on Menefee, delivered before the Law Society of Transylvania University, at Lexington, 
April 12, 1841. 



5i8 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



nized as a statesman and a leader. The intrepid boldness of his character, 
and surpassing strength of his genius, seemed to have smitten all parties 
with astonishment. Some of the leading men of the political party to which 
he was opposed pronounced him the most extraordinary man of his age who 
had till then appeared in Congress. He encountered hostiUty in his upward 
flight (when did soaring genius fail to do it?), and meaner birds would have 
barred him from his pathway to the skies. With crimson beak and bloody 
talons, he rent his way through the carrion crew, and moved majestically 
up to bathe his plumage in the sun. Never did a career more dazzHngly 
splendid open upon the eye of young ambition than burst upon Menefee. 
The presses teemed with his praise, the whole country was full of his name; 
yet did he wear his honors with the ease of a familiar dress. He trod the 
new and dizzy path with a steady eye, and that same veteran step which 
was so eminently his characteristic. Around his path there seems to have 
been thrown none of those delusions which haunt the steps of youth and in- 
experience. All was stern reality and truth. He maintained his character 
undimmed, and position unshaken, till the end of his term, and then this 
wonderful man imposed upon himself, his spirit, and his ambition, that iron 
control of which I have spoken, and voluntarily retired from a theater the 
most elevated and commanding upon which genius and ambition, like his, 
could engage in the gigantic strife for undying honor. 

"In the summer of 1839 he located himself in Lexington for the practice 
of law. There was no dreary novitiate with him. He stepped into the 

forum armed at all points, and business 
flowed in upon him in a full and rich tide. 
Never did any man occupy such a position 
in Kentucky as did Menefee in the opening 
of his professional career in Lexington. The 
public sympathies rallied around to cheer 
and support him, in a manner utterly un- 
known in any other case. Each step of 
his progress but deepened the interest and 
vindicated more triumphantly the opinion 
entertained of him. Men flocked in crowds 
to hear him speak; his counsel was sought 
and relied upon, and his services engaged 
RICHARD H. MENEFEE. whenever it was practicable, at points distant 

from the scene of his immediate operations. At a period of life when most 
men are just rising into business, he was steeped, actually overwhelmed, 
with the weightiest, most honorable, and most profitable causes. The sun 
of prosperity broke out upon him with a warmth and brilliancy entirely 
without example. All difficulties had vanished from before him. I 

" He, in a grand and final effort, exalted himself; and in that effort, pour-* 
ing forth his genius and his life, reached the consummation of his first wishes, 




II 



SEVERAL NEW BANKS ESTABLISHED. 519 

the utmost point of his childhood's prayer. He was measured and found a 
match for one whose thunders long have shaken the American Senate, and 
who was erst the monarch of the forum. Mr. Menefee declined gradually 
from September. His waning life sank, not his spirit. When apprised at 
last that his hour had arrived, ' Brief summons ! ' was the reply, and he 
manned himself to die with dignity. 

" Thus perished, in the thirty-second year of his life, Richard H. Menefee, 
a man designated by nature and himself, for inevitable greatness. A man 
of the rarest talents and of the most commanding character. A man whose 
moral qualities were as faultless as his intellectual constitution was vigorous 
and brilliant. A man to whose advancing eminence there was no limit but 
the constitution of his country, had not the energies of his mind proved too 
mighty for the material element which enclosed them." 

iThe fate of the Commonwealth's Bank, and the replevin laws connected 
with it, was sealed by the triumph of the old-court party. The latter were 
repealed, and the former was gradually extinguished by successive acts of 
the Legislature, which directed that its paper should be gradually burned, 
instead of being reissued. In a very few years its paper disappeared from 
circulation, and was replaced by the issue of the United States Bank, of 
which two branches had been established in Kentucky, the one at Lexing- 
ton and the other at Louisville. It was the policy of the great Jackson 
party of the United States to destroy this institution entirely, and the re- 
election of Jackson, in 1832, sealed its doom. It became obvious to all that 
its charter would not be renewed, and the favorite policy of that party was 
then to establish State banks throughout the Union, which were to supply 
its place. 

As soon as it became obvious that the charter of the Bank of the United 
States would not be renewed, the Legislature of Kentucky, at its sessions 
of 1833 and 1834, established the Bank of Kentucky, the Northern Bank 
of Kentucky, and the Bank of Louisville; the first with a capital of five 
million, the second with a capital of three million, the third with a capital 
of two million dollars. The result of this simultaneous and enormous 
multiplication of State banks throughout the United States, consequent on 
the fall of the National Bank, was vastly to increase the quantity of paper 
money afloat, and to stimulate the wildest spirit of speculation. The nom- 
inal prices of all commodities rose with portentous rapidity; and States, 
cities, and individuals embarked heedlessly and with feverish ardor in 
schemes of internal improvement and private speculation, upon the most 
gigantic scale. During the years of 1835 and 1836, the history of one State 
is the history of all. Each rushed into the market to borrow money, and 
eagerly-projected plans of railroads, canals, slack-water navigation, and turn- 
pike roads, far beyond the demands of commerce, and in general without 
making any solid provision for the payment of the accruing interest, or re- 

I Collins, Vol. L, p. 325. 



520 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

imbursement of the principal. This fabric of credit was too baseless and 
unreal to endure. 

In the spring of 1837, all the banks of Kentucky and of the Union sus- 
pended specie payments. Kentucky was then in the midst of a scheme 
of internal improvement, upon which she was spending about one million 
dollars annually, embracing the construction of turnpike roads and the im- 
provement of her rivers, and she was eagerly discussing railroad projects 
on a princely scale. Her citizens were generally involved in private spec- 
ulations, based upon the idea that the present buoyant prices would be 
permanent, and both public and private credit had been strained to the 
utmost. 

In this state of things the Legislature of 1837 met, and legalized the sus- 
pension of the banks, refusing to compel them to resume specie payments, 
and refusing to exact the forfeiture of their charters. A general effort was 
made by banks, government, and individuals to relax the pressure of the 
crisis as much as possible, and great forbearance and moderation were exer- 
cised by all parties. The effect was to mitigate the present pressure, to 
delay the day of reckoning, but not to remove the evil. Specie disappeared 
from circulation entirely, and the smaller coin was replaced by paper tick- 
ets, issued by cities, towns, and individuals, having a local currency, but 
worthless beyond the range of their immediate neighborhood. The banks, 
in the meantime, were conducted with prudence and ability. They forbore 
to press their debtors severely, but cautiously and gradually lessened their 
circulation and increased their specie, till after a suspension of rather more 
than one year they ventured to resume specie payment. This resumption 
was general throughout the United States, and business and speculation 
again became buoyant. The latter part of 1838, and nearly the whole of 
1839, witnessed an activity in business, and a transient prosperity, which 
somewhat resembled the feverish ardor of 1835 and 1836. But the fatal 
disease still lurked in the system, and it was the hectic flush of an uncured 
malady, not the ruddy glow of health, which deluded the eye of the ob- 
server. 

In the autumn of 1839, there was a second general suspension of specie 
payments, with the exception of a few Eastern banks. It became obvious 
that the mass of debt could not much longer be staved off Bankruptcies 
multiplied in every direction. All public improvements were suspended; 
many States were unable to pay the interest of their respective debts, and 
Kentucky was compelled to add fifty per cent, to her direct tax, or forfeit 
her integrity. In the latter part of 1841, and in the year 1842, the tempest 
so long suspended burst in full force over Kentucky. The dockets of her 
courts groaned under the enormous load of lawsuits, and the most frightful 
sacrifices of property were incurred by forced sales under execution. All 
at once the long-forgotten cry of relief again arose from thousands of har- 
assed voters, and a new project of a Bank of the Commonwealth, like the 



11 



TURNPIKE AND MACADAM ROADS. 52 1 

)ld one, was agitated, with a blind and fierce ardor, which mocked at the 
essons of experience, and sought present relief at any expense. 

This revival of the ancient relief party assumed a formidable appearance 
n the elections of 1842, but was encountered in the Legislature with equal 
ikill and firmness. The specific measures of the relief party were rejected, 
)ut liberal concessions were made to them in other forms, which proved 
latisfactory to the more rational members, and warded off the fury of the 
empest which at first threatened the most mischievous results. The middle 
erm of the circuit courts was abolished. The magistrates were compelled 
o hold four terms annually, and forbidden to give judgment save at their 
egular terms. The existing banks were required to issue more paper, and 
rive certain accommodations for a longer time and a regular apportionment, 
rhese concessions proved satisfactory, and at the expense of vast suffering 
luring 1843 ^^d 1844, society gradually assumed a more settled and pros- 
)erous state. 

The subject of internal improvements in various forms and places en- 
gaged the early attention of the people of Kentucky. The first organized 
;fforts in this direction were suggested by the natural obstructions to travel, 
md the almost impassable condition at certain seasons of the year, which 
nade the passage of wagons and other vehicles of conveyance so difficult 
md unpleasant upon the main inland lines of immigration, and along the 
nain thoroughfares. As far back as 1797-1802, parties were authorized to 
:onstruct and maintain turnpikes on the road from Crab Orchard to Cum- 
)erland Gap, from Paris to Big Sandy, and other lines. The common 
lesignation of turnpike, applied to roads graded and bottomed with stone or 
;ravel, is very different from the original and literal meaning of the word, 
rhe specific meaning of turnpike refers only to the toll gate established by 
aw, and where money is collected for the use of any improved road. The 
irst turnpike roads, therefore, were formed by throwing the earth from the 
ides to the center, in a rounded form, and in keeping them in this state of 
epair. 

The bedding of roads with stone and gravel was an invention of Mac- 
Vdam, and hence such are properly known as Macadamized roads. ^ In 
December, 1826, Governor Desha, in his annual message, advocated in 
'ery decided language the extension of State aid to a main highway from 
klaysville, via Paris, Lexington, and Frankfort, to Louisville, and also to 
>ther similar lines. He says: "The subjects of common schools and in- 
ernal improvements may be made auxiliary to each other. Let the school 
und now in the Bank of the Commonwealth, $140,917, the proceeds of the 
ales of vacant lands, the bank stock held by the State, $781,238, and all 
)ther funds which can be raised by other means than taxes on the people, 
)e vested in the turnpike roads; and the net profits from tolls on these be 
acredly devoted to the interests of education." 

I Collins, Vol. I., p. 537. 



52 2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In May, 1827, the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike-road Company 
was incorporated anew, \vith a capital of three hundred and twenty thou- 
sand dollars. The General Government was expected to subscribe for one 
hundred thousand dollars, and the State government for another one hun- 
dred thousand dollars, of this. The secretary of war ordered a survey of 
the route for a great national highway from Zanesville, Ohio, through Mays- 
ville, Lexington, Nashville (Tennessee), and Florence (Alabama), to New 
Orleans. In February, 1828, the Legislature of Kentucky recommended 
Congress to facilitate and aid the construction of this important national 
highway, and instructed our delegation in Congress to support the measure. 
The bills passed the House, but, by the coincidence of a very close vote, it 
was defeated in the Senate by the unfortunate vote in opposition, by Senator 
John Rowan, of Kentucky, and at a time when President John Adams 
would readily have signed it. 

In May, 1830, a bill passed Congress authorizing the United States Gov- 
ernment to subscribe one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the stock of 
the Maysville, Paris, and Lexington macadamized road, which bill, to the 
consternation of the friends, as well as to all friends of internal improve- 
ment, was vetoed by President Andrew Jackson. This determination was 
accepted as a precedent to govern the future policy of the administration on 
such measures, and hence became an exciting and absorbing topic of dis- 
cussion throughout the country. This paralyzing blow was but temporary 
in its effect. The energy of the friends along the route seems only to have 
gathered new vitality and impetus, and most liberal private subscriptions 
were made. From January, 1830, until five years after, the State Legislature 
appropriated $213,200 toward the construction from Maysville to Lexington, 
one-half the cost. The system of State aid to macadamized roads, thus fairly 
inaugurated, was extended in succeeding years, until the subscriptions by 
the Commonwealth to all such reached an aggregate of $2,539,473. In 
1837, three hundred and forty-three miles of these roads had been com- 
pleted, and two hundred and thirty-six miles more were under way. It may 
be interesting to note here that in March, 1827, the Legislature of Maryland 
chartered the first railroad in the LTnited States — the Baltimore & Ohio. 
It was not completed through to the Ohio river until March, 1853, twenty- 
six years after. 

The broader and more formidable work of improving the navigable 
streams within the State began to attract attention as early as 1793. Until 
the year 1833, these enterprises did not extend to a further improvement 
than the clearing of the channels of such streams of all obstruction to such 
navigation as was in vogue at the time. Transportation by water was mainly 
done as yet by flat-boats and barges, and the smaller streams were for a long 
time the channels of transportation by these only. During the two decades 
from 1790 to 1810, the channel improvement of Licking, Hinkson, and 
Stoner, the Kentucky and its three forks, Rgd river. Green and Barren 



THE OHIO CANAL COMPANY INCORPORATED. 523 

/ers, Mud and Pond rivers, and Rough creek were the subject of legis- 
tive enactment. Green and Barren rivers, however, were the first to 
ceive the serious attention of the State Government. This w^as begun in 
rveys for locking and damming those streams, so as to make them naviga- 
e by slack-water continuously. This work was inaugurated in 1833, and 
r 1836, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars had been appropri- 
ed, and mainly expended in engineering and upon the first locks. By this 
ite only some $5,108 were expended on the Kentucky river, and $1,273 on 
e Licking. 

The total amount expended on the permanent improvement of naviga- 
)n on Green and Barren rivers to Bowling Green, requiring four locks in 
reen and one in Barren, was $859,126. From 1843 to 1865, twenty-two 
ars, thirteen annual dividends were paid out of the tolls on these rivers, 
t, on the whole, the expenses were $269,813, against $265,002 of receipts, 
owing a total excess of $4,811 of expenses in twenty-two years. In the 
port of 1844, the Board of Internal Improvements asserted that the works 
I Green river cost the State _/fw ^mes the estimate of 1833, and on Ken- 
cky river, three to four times the estimate. The average cost per mile on 
reen river was $5,010, against the estimate of $1,283, ^^^ ^^^ hundred 
d eighty miles, or nearly fourfold. 

Surveys and estimates were made for Rockcastle, upper and lower Cum- 
rland. Goose creek and North Fork of Kentucky river, Salt, Little and 
g Sandy, Licking, and other rivers of lesser note. 

In 1836, the total estimated cost of seventeen locks and dams, after a 
rvey from the mouth to Middle Fork of the Kentucky river, and on two 
[ndred and fifty-seven miles of channel route, was $2,297,416, or an aver- 
e of $8,922 per mile. But five of the locks and dams were completed, from 
e mouth of the river to Steele's ripple, above Frankfort. The gross receipts 
1 Kentucky river navigation from 1843 to 1865, twenty-three years, were 
.61,781, against a total of expenditures of $303,707, leaving a net revenue 

$158,074, making an average annual dividend of three-fourths of one per 
nt. on the invested capital. 

Another enterprise of national importance quite early commanded the 
tention of the Kentucky Legislature. In December, 1804, an act was 
ssed incorporating the Ohio Canal Company, designed to construct a 
nal from Louisville to Portland, with capacity to pass all boats by the Falls, 
le charter was afterward amended, requiring the canal to be cut on the 
entucky side of the river, making it real estate, and exempting it from all 
xation forever. The governor was directed to subscribe for fifty thousand 
•liars of the five hundred thousand dollars stock capital, with an option 
r fifty thousand more. Other options were given for the LTnited States to 
bscribe sixty thousand dollars ; Pennsylvania and Virginia, thirty thousand 
)llars, each; and Maryland, New York, and Ohio twenty thousand dollars, 
ch. Subsequent legislation provided similarly for this work, without prac- 



524 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tical results, until 1826, Governor Desha, in his message to the Legislature 
in December, called special attention to the urgent necessity and value of 
this work, both for its pressing utility and the value of the investment as a 
pecuniary resource. In this same year Congress ordered the purchase of 
one hundred thousand dollars of the forfeited stock. As many as one thou- 
sand men were employed during the summer and fall of 1S26. Various 
interruptions and changes retarded the completion of the canal, until it was 
finally opened for navigation in 1831. The entire cost of construction to 
January, 1832, was $742,869. 

Until January, 1840, the reports of dividends showed that the investment 
was richly remunerative to the stockholders. In 1838 and 1839, the divi- 
dends reached fourteen and seventeen per cent., and in the interim stock 
sold as high as one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty dollars 
per share. The United States Government, in 1842, owned twenty-nine 
hundred and two shares of the stock, of the par value of $290,200. 
After this year, no dividends were declared, the net earnings up to 1859 
being appropriated to the purchase of stock owned by private individuals, 
which was held in trust by the directors. After 1859, the income was ex- 
pended in the enlargement and improvement of the canal, or held to create 
a sinking fund to pay off the bonds issued in aid of enlargement. In 1866, 
this extension work stopped for want of funds, after $1,825,403 had been 
expended, making the total cost to February, 1868, $2,823,403. The cost 
of completing the enlargement on the scale projected was estimated by the 
engineer in charge to be $1,178,000. The city of Louisville and the State 
having declined to embark more funds in the enterprise, the ownership and 
control gradually fell to the General Government, which, from 1868 to 1872, 
appropriated $1,300,000 toward the proposed completion. In 1874, it took 
final action toward assuming the payment of $1,172,000 of bonds outstand- 
ing, and then assumed possession of this great and important public work, 
making it henceforth a free canal, excepting small charges to meet repairs 
and provide proper attention. 

The Falls of Ohio around the canal, and in the river channel, have a 
length of about three miles, while the canal is about two miles long. The 
fall of water in this distance is twenty-five and a quarter feet, sufficient to 
furnish motive power, if utilized, to run three hundred factories and mills, 
and to thus support fifty thousand people, and which, in a great manufact- 
uring section, would doubtless have been utilized years ago, and made a 
source of vast industry and wealth. 

We have noted the fact that the Baltimore & Ohio railroad was chartered 
in 1827, and the first built in the Ignited States. It was completed from Bal- 
timore to Cumberland long before 1848, and then to the Ohio by 1853. In 
March, 1830, Joseph Bruen, of Lexington, exhibited the model of a rail- 
road, locomotive steam-engine, and car, creating the belief that carriages 
and heavy freights could be as easily and certainly drawn by steam power 



FIRST TRAIN OF CARS ARRIVES AT FRANKFORT. 525 

as boats could be propelled. In April, a survey of a route sliowed the 
altitude of Lexington to be four hundred and thirty feet above that of Frank- 
fort. October 22, 1831, the first sill for the Lexington and Frankfort R. R. 
was placed, in the presence of a large concourse of citizens and strangers 
attracted. The model for this plan was the result of the investigations of 
a committee appointed to travel East and ascertain the method of construct- 
ing a railroad. By their report, stone was quarried and dressed with one 
straight edge, to be set upward and closely together, forming exact parallel 
double lines of curbing. On the face of this curbing the flat rails were laid 
horizontally, and fastened down by spikes driven through corresponding 
mortises in the rail and rock. Of course, all this roadbed machinery went 
to pieces before an experimental trial could be effected. After persevering 
efforts for a few years, on the 25th of January, 1835, the first locomotive and 
train of cars from Lexington arrived at the head of the inclined plane at 
Frankfort, in two hours and twenty-nine minutes, amid the enthusiasm of 
the gratified populace. The railroads from Louisville to Frankfort, from 
Lexington to Covington, from Paris to Maysville, and from Louisville to 
Nashville followed after the first experiment. The subsequent history of 
the remaining lines of the State system of railways is familiar to the most 
of our readers of to-day. 

We turn again to note with profound interest the religious phenomena 
and progress during the first half of the present century, a period as marked 
for the waning power of the old and effete idiosyncracies of ecclesiastic dog- 
matisms and polities, and the restoration of the simplicity and majesty of 
apostolic truth and practice, as any within the Christian era. The anima- 
ting inspiration of civil and personal liberty pervading our political life, itself 
the divine fruitage and outgi owth of the universal equality of the rights 
of manhood to each personality divinely taught in the infallible text-book 
of Christianity, incited a degree of intellectual activity and progressive in- 
vestigation which was not less reformatory in religion than in politics, in 
science, in art, and in invention. The conservatism of Europe still held, 
bound in fetters, the liberty of thought, as well as the liberty of person and 
action. We need not wonder, then, that the world owes more to America 
in the first century of its political life, for all important inventions and re- 
forms which exercise a potential influence over the affairs of mankind, than 
to all Europe for the past tw^enty centuries. If this is true with reference 
to the discoveries of steam as a practical motor, of the cotton-gin, of the 
sewing-machine, of the electric telegraph, of the telephone, of agricultural 
machinery, and other useful inventions, it is not less true of progressive de- 
velopment toward primitive truth in politics and in religion. In practical 
inventions of steam as a motive power, and in other useful arts and sciences, 
to the citizenship of Kentucky belongs the claims of rivalry, while in the 
doctrines of republican government which aim at personal and civil liberty, 
and in the reforms looking to a restoration of religion to its original integrity 



526 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

and purity, as taught by its divine author and His apostles, she may well 
claim equal honors with any other country of like population in the world. 

The Baptist Church suffered a schism of no great material importance, 
but showing the effervescence of agitated sentiment, in 1804, by the with- 
drawal of Tarrant, Barrow, and a number of other ministers, with some lay 
following, on account of their miplacable hostility to slavery. They intruded 
these sentiments upon their associations, and demanded open discussion and 
endorsement. These bodies generally declared it improper for ministers, 
churches, or associations to meddle with this or any other political subject. 
The abolition element, styling themselves "Friends of Humanity," with- 
drew from the General Union of the Baptists, and in 1807 formed an as- 
sociation of their own, called "The Baptist Licking-Locust Association." 
Their numbers soon dwindled and the body wasted to nothing. 

^In 1809, a local schism was effected by an element of considerable in- 
fluence in the churches of the Elkhorn Association, originating in aliena- 
tions and dissensions between Jacob Creath and friends of the one party 
and Thomas Lewis and friends of the other. Yet the progressive growth of 
the Baptist Church continued uniformly, and in 181 2, the statistics show 
that they had thirteen associations, two hundred and eighty-five churches, 
one hundred and eighty-three ministers, and over twenty-two thousand six 
hundred members. No serious disturbance interrupted the steady growth 
of the church for the succeeding twenty years. About the year 1829 and 
after, the noted religious reformation, led by Alexander Campbell and Bar- 
ton W. Stone mainly, divided associations and churches, and carried off 
thousands from this and other denominational bodies. While this great 
movement depleted its numbers and strength for some years, the Baptist 
Church has maintained a steady and vigorous growth throughout the subse- 
quent years and to date. 

In the statistical tables of the minutes of the General Association of 1890, 
but representing the figures of 1891, the exhibits show totals of 1,441 
churches and 143,288 members reported; also 618 Sunday-schools and 
36.991 scholars; contributions to State and district missions, $11,811; to 
home missions, $6,347; to foreign missions, $8,427; and for all church 
purposes, $309,900. Statistics of the same year show the colored* Baptists 
of Kentucky to have 509 churches, 615 ministers, 68,137 members, 14,000 
Sunday-school pupils and 2,875 teachers, 5 academies and universities, 3 
journals, and church property valued at $275,000. 

Under care of the Baptist Church, institutions of learning have been 
established. Chief among these in general education stands Georgetown 
College, an institution which may claim jirecedence over all others of like 
miportance, for long-continued and uniform usefulness in Kentucky, except- 
ing, perhaps. Centre College. Indeed, it is the fifth Bapti.st college or uni- 
versity, in the order of time, on the Western Continent, and the first south 

I Benedict, Vol. II., p. 233. 



PRESIDENTS OF GEORGETOWN COLLEGE. 



527 




REV. DUNCAN R. CAMPBELL, 



of the Potomac and west of the Alleghanies. It was chartered in 1829, 
and in June, 1830, Dr. Joel S. Bacon was the first president installed. In 
1838, Rev. Rockwood Giddings succeeded to the same position, and in a 
brief time put the institution in prime condition, and increased the sub- 
scription to the endowment fund to 
eighty thousand dollars. His death was 
lamented after a brief service of two 
years. In 1840, Rev. Howard Malcolm, 
D. D., assumed the presidency, and for 
ten years discharged the duties of the 
office with uniform success. This pros- 
perity was continued for twelve years 
under the presidential administration of 
Rev. Duncan R. Campbell, D. D., LL. 
D. In 1852, he was elected president 
of Georgetown College, filling the posi- 
tion until his death, August 16, 1865. 

In 187 1, Rev. Basil Manly, D. D., 
was made president, and during his eight 
years' administration the college was prosperous. In June, 1879, Dr. 
Manly having resigned. Rev. R. M. Dudley, D. D., was elected president, 
and served until his death in 1893. ^^ 1^93) Dr. A. C. Davidson, of Cov- 
ington, Ky., was appointed to the presidency so recently made vacant by 
death. 

In addition, Bethel College, James H. Fuqua, A. M., president, repre- 
sents the educational interest in West Kentucky, under the auspices of the 

Baptist Church, and ranks high in 
the excellence of its training of 
young men for the varied callings of 
life. The "Enlow fund" furnishes 
aid to any ministerial student who 
may enter this college. 

The Southern Baptist Theological 
Seminary, after long discussion, was 
finally removed from Greenville, S. 
C, and located a few years ago at 
Louisville, and is now in a highly 
prosperous condition, with an able 
faculty composed of President W. 
H. Whitsitt and Professors Sampey, 
Kerfoot, Robertson, Dargan, Harris 
and McGlothlin. The Baptists of 
Kentucky pledged $300,000 for its 
ELDER THOMAS P. DUDLEY. location, and $200,000 was to be 




528 



HISTORY OK KENTUCKY. 




raised outside of the State. In 1885, ^^e eligible and spacioL . grounds (^ji 
Broadway, between Fourth and Fifth streets, were purchased as a site fo 
the early construction of suitable buildings for the Theological Seminarv, 
Two hundred and sixty-seven students, mainly from the Southern States 
were in attendance for the session 1894-95. 

Of the ministers of the " Particular " Baptist Church who have adherec 
with greatest firmness and consistency during the present century to the faitl 

and doctrines of extremest Calvinism as 
' t^Cvtr embodied in the Philadelphia confessioi 

of faith, no man stands forth more con 
spicuously in the religious history 01 
Kentucky than Rev. Thomas P. Dudle\ , 
who, at his home in Lexington, at the 
advanced age of ninety-four years, died 
July 10, 1886. 

Rev. William Vaughn, who began and 
ended his ministry in the intermediate 
period of Kentucky history, was born in 
Pennsylvania, February 22, 1785. He 
was ordained to the ministry in 181 2, 
and was held in high esteem by the 
brotherhood of the Baptist Church dur- 
ing the long ])eriod of his labors. By 
his devotion to study, he became not 
only a good English scholar, but possessed considerable attainments in the 
Greek language and literature. In 1831-33, as agent for the American 
Sunday-school Union, he accomplished a great work in establishing about 
one hundred schools. In 1836, he became pastor of the Baptist Churcli 
at Bloomfield, to which he preached for thirty-two years. 

In 1868, in consequence of an injury received by a fall, he resigned his 
pastoral charge, in his eighty-fourth year, but continued to be a close stu- 
dent, and to preach as his strength would serve him, until he was over 
ninety-two years of age. It is probable that no minister in Kentucky was 
ever more universally loved and respected. He died March 31, 1877, at the 
advanced age mentioned above. 

The status of the Christian Church assumed proportions in Kentucky, 
such as demand our attention here. The movement resulting in its sepa- 
rate existence began in Western Pennsylvania in 1809, and in Kentucky and 
Ohio as far back as 1801 , the nuclei of its extension in America and abroad. 
Thomas Campbell, born in Ireland, February i, 1763, was the first to 
break away from the prevalent ideas of the church. He was educated in 
the University of Glasgow. Scotland, and became a minister of the Scotch 
Seceder (Presbyterian) Church. His labors as preacher and teacher im- 
paired his health. April 8, 1807, under advice from his physician, he 



REV. WILLIAM VAUGHN. 



ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 



529 




ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 



made a voyage to this country, leaving his son, Alexander, in charge of 
his school and family. In thirty-five days he landed in Philadelphia, and 
soon afterward in Washington county, Pennsylvania. Finding here, as in 
Europe, a multiplicity of religious sects, and impressed with the resultant 
evils he determined upon an effort to unite the people. His broad, 
tolerant spirit soon drew many godly persons from variant parties into the 
movement. August 7, 1807, the " Christian Association " of Washington 
county, Pennsylvania, was formed. 
From this was issued the "Declara- 
tion and Address" written by Thomas 
Campbell, and published in 1809. "It 
was a remarkable production — for its 
catholicity, its supreme exaltation of 
the word of God, its clear, unequivocal 
statement of the only apparent practi- 
cal ground of union, and its enuncia- 
tion of all the prmciples of the rising 
religious movement." The same fall 
his family jomed him. Alexander read 
the proof-sheets of the address, and 
heartily approved. 

He was born September 12, 1788, 
in the county of Antrim, Ireland. His 
ancestors were, one side, Scotch, and on the other. Huguenots. The son, 
like the father, was deeply impressed with the evils of sectism, and was im- 
bued with a profound reverence for the word of God. The two became 
inseparable in a common purpose, in full accord with the principles of the 
address; but the application of them to the solution of questions of faith 
and practice was the work of years. 

Earnest study of the Bible led both, with others, to substitute immersion 
for affusion; and June 12, 1812, they were immersed by a Baptist minister. 
Having discarded infant baptism, they became identified with the Redstone 
(Baptist) Association, stipulating, however, that they should be bound by 
no human creed In this connection they would have continued to labor 
as ministers, but some of its members, intolerant of innovations, annoyed 
them much by proscriptiveness, and they withdrew, uniting with the Ma- 
honing Association, where they had greater freedom of utterance. This 
step inaugurated the new movement in the great Ohio river valley, where, 
ever since, a strong center has been maintained. Walter Scott, born in 
Scotland, October 31, 1797, a young man of fine culture and genius, be- 
came a most helpful coadjutor. Likewise, the Creaths, Bosworths, John- 
sons, and others pushed forward the work, bringing over whole churches, 
mostly Baptist. 

From necessity Alexander Campbell entered the field of controversy. 

34 



53° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

His first debate was held at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, with Rev. John Walker, 
a Presbyterian, in 1820. It was published in 182 1, and attracted so much 
attention that it seems to have led to another discussion at Washington, 
Kentucky, with Rev. W. L. McCalla, a Presbyterian, in 1823. This was 
published in 1824. A third discussion, on the Evidences of Christianity, 
was held with Robert Owen, in 1829; one on Romanism, with the late 
Archbishop Purcell, in 1837, and one with Dr. N. L. Rice, in 1843, ^t 
Lexington, Kentucky. Meantime, he was publishing from 1823 a monthly 
called the Christiafi Baptist until 1830 when the title became the Millen- 
nial Harbinger. His oral debates and writings, freely circulated in Kentucky, 
brought over many Baptists and Presbyterians, with others, to the cause he 
so ably pleaded. And Kentucky thus became an important center of in- 
fluence and a stronghold. The way had already been paved in this State, 
and this was brought about by the labors mainly of Barton W. Stone, once 
a minister of the Presbyterian Church, but who, with a number of brethren, 
had been preaching much the same tenor with the Campbells since 1801. 
He was the founder and leader in Kentucky of the '' Christian Connection," 
invidiously named " New Lights." From the early part of the century, he 
had been contending, in advance even of the Campbells, with some as- 
sociates gathered around him, in Kentucky and Ohio, for the union of 
Christians on broader Bible grounds. Mr. Stone had suffered much asper- 
sion, however, from imaginary unsoundness on the doctrines of the Trinity 
and the atonement. But a harmonious understanding having been reached 
by these two great leaders, the churches respectively represented by them 
were practically united in 1832. John T. Johnson, John Smith, the Rogers, 
and others were efficient agents in securing the union upon the word of God 
alone, all agreeing that, although there is but one faith, there are, and must 
be, many opinions, which, as such, should not be made tests of fellowship. 
Speculations on the unrevealed are not to be made bonds of union. 

The Disciples originally, as now, professed to aim at the restoration of 
Christianity in everything simply taught in its apostolic deliverance and 
embodiment. Hence, their only creed : Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the 
living God. They hold that no other confession of faith was required by 
the Apostles, nor any rule of faith and practice other than the Holy Scrip- 
tures, authoritative because given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They 
reject all human creeds as authoritative, believing them to be divisive and 
destructive of the unity of the Church of God in Christ. The simple con- 
gregational organization they hold to be the highest jurisdiction within the 
Church, ordained of God for men. 

They baptize — immerse — the penitent believer only for (in order to) re- 
mission of past sins, receiving only such baptized persons into fellowship, 
who, if they continue loyal to Christ until death, are assured of eternal life. 

They consider the Lord's day worship not wholly and scripturally fulfilled 
without the observance of the Lord's Supper, as was the ancient custom. 



THE TEACHINGS OF THE "CHRISTIANS. 



531 



In organization, they are congregational for the functions of govern- 
ment, yet they confer together for purposes of co-operation in good 
works. But no conference or council has legislative or judicial power over 
congregations. 

As individuals or as churches, they acknowledge no distinctive religious 
names other than those that are scriptural. Hence, they repudiate the 
name "Campbellite," as also did Mr. Campbell himself. They respond to 
siny scriptural name, as Disciples, Disciples of Christ, Christians, Churches 
of Christ, etc. The whole body of believers, or Christians, in all the world, 
and, for that matter, in all time, they speak of as the body of Christ, the 
Church of Christ, or the Church of God. By custom of law courts, they 
are known in some districts as Christian Churches, or, all considered to- 
gether, as the "Christian Church," and many congregations call themselves 
Christian Churches, as the equivalent of Churches of Christians. 

They firmly hold and teach the tri-personality of God as Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit. The pervading sentiment resulting from Bible study is 
Trinitarian and Arminian ; but they ignore all speculative systems of theol- 
ogy as tests of fellowship, requiring faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of 
God, and sincere obedience to all Divine commands, as the decisive tests 
of Christian character. A generally accepted motto is, "Unity in faith, 
diversity in opinions, charity in all things." 

From the first the Disciples of Kentucky have been aggressive, as is 
always the case of those who have strong convictions. They have also been 
noted for Bible intelligence and educational enterprise. 

The number of ministers in the State is over five hundred; the number 
of communicants is about ninety-two thousand, in some nine hundred 
churches. 

John T. Johnson, who, in 1829-30, became deeply interested in the 
views presented in the writings and teachings of Alexander Campbell, be- 
gan the work of the ministry, and, 
severing his connection with the 
Baptist Church in 1831, he organized 
a church upon the basis of the Bible 
alone. From that time forth he gave 
his life service in the cause to which 
he had consecrated himself. Associ- 
ating himself with Stone in the effort, 
they were mainly instrumental in 
effecting the union of 1832-34 be- 
tween the Christians and Reformers, 
those of views in harmony with Mr. 
Campbell being called by the latter 
name. His call to the ministry was 
the more remarkable, as his life hith- rev. john t. johnson. 




532 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



erto had been prominent and eventful. He was born at the Great Cross- 
ings, in Scott county, October 5, 1788, the eighth child of Colonel Robert 
Johnson, and a brother of Richard M. Johnson, afterward vice-president 
of the United States. His education was fair for the times. He chose 
the profession of law and practiced for awhile. He was a volunteer in 
the war of 181 2-15, and performed gallant services throughout, acting for 
some time as aid to General Harrison, and had his horse shot under him 
at Fort Meigs. On his return home, he was five times elected to serve 
his constituency in the Legislature, and twice to Congress. For nine 
months he was judge of the " new" Court of Appeals, pending the excited 
discussion of the old and new court questions. His political future was 
bright and promising, when he gave up all secular callings to devote 
himself to the service of the Christian religion. From 1829 until the date 
of his death, at Lexington, Mo., December 17, 1856, no man ever more 
faithfully and singly devoted his entire energies of mind and body to a 
loved cause than did John T. Johnson, not less a hero in the field of the 
ministry than he and his gallant brothers were upon the field of battle. 
In preaching the Gospel, in advancing the educational enterprises of 
his church, in founding and promoting benevolent institutions, and in 
fostering mission work at home and abroad, no brother or comrade of the 
ministry ever threw his soul into his calling more than did this noble man 
of God. 

Of the men of great power in Kentucky, who were prominent preach- 
ers during this period of the Christian Church, there were John Smith, the 
Creaths, the Rogers, B. F. Hall, Walter Scott, William Morton, Aylett 
Raines, John Allen Gano, Curtis J. Smith, Philip S. Fall, and others who 
might be mentioned. 

ijohn Smith was born on the 15th of October, 1784, in Sullivan county, 

East Tennessee, in the log cabin of 
the day and country. His schooling 
was of the sort the frontier settle- 
ments then afforded. In 1795 his 
father sold out and moved his family 
to a new farm in the valley of Cum- 
berland river, at the foot of Poplar- 
mountain, in Stockton's valley. His 
parents were Baptists and firm be- 
lievers in the Philadelphia confession 
of faith, and in 1804 he was baptized 
into this faith. In 1808 he was or- 
dained to preach, and entered zeal- 
ously into the ministry. In 1815, 
ELDER JOHN SMITH. while on a tour from home, and his 




I Life of John Smith by John Augustus Williams. 



KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY. 533 

wife at a neighbor's beside the bed of a dying woman, his house and its 
contents were burned, and his two oldest children perished in the flames. 
This visitation of sorrow was followed soon by the death of his wife, and 
the sad bereavements for a time bowed him to the earth. With chastened 
heart, he recovered his spirits again, and was ever after noted for his 
uncomplaining cheerfulness and humor. In 1823-24 he became deeply 
interested in the views of Christianity presented by Mr. Campbell, and 
soon embraced and began to preach them. From this time until his 
death, in Mexico, Missouri, on the 28th of February, 186S, Elder John 
Smith devoted the whole services of a godly and zealous life actively in the 
mission he had chosen. Without pretense to scholarship, he was thoroughly 
familiar with every verse of the Bible and with the doctrines and arguments 
of the religious issues of his day. His mind was wondrously retentive and 
vigorous, and his words in public and private speech were luminous with 
logic, pathos, wit and humor, such as quickened the attention and swayed 
the will of the audience to a degree that few men had the power to do. 
With a rich, deep, and sonorous voice, and an impressive earnestness, he 
blended all in a gift of natural and vigorous oratory that never failed to 
interest and move. Though past his eighty-fourth year, his death was pro- 
foundly lamented throughout Kentucky, for his ministerial activities, even 
at this remarkable age, made him yet a factor of power in the pulpit and 
in the world outside. In the early days of his pioneer preaching, from an 
incident characteristic of the day, he received the sobriquet of ' ' Raccoon 
John Smith,'''' which he bore until his death. He was fortunate in his biog- 
rapher. The elegant and accomplished pen of John Augustus Williams 
has enriched Kentucky literature with the story of his life and times in a 
work unsurpassed of its kind. 

Under the auspices of the Christian Church there are numerous repre- 
sentative universities, colleges, and academies, offering facilities for educa- 
tion in every department of classical and scientific literature within the State. 
Chief among these we may rank Kentucky University, located at Lexington. 
This institution was the successor of Bacon College, which was established 
at Georgetown in 1836, and removed to Harrodsburg in 1839, and which 
continued, with varied fortunes, to be the leading college of the denomina- 
tion in Kentucky, until 1858. In this year the Legislature granted a charter 
merging this college into Kentucky University. The first session of the uni- 
versity opened at Harrodsburg in September, 1859, with nearly two hundred 
students, under the presidency of Robert Milligan. With unvarying pros- 
perity, its management continued here until 1865, when it was removed and 
established at Lexington, Kentucky. Mr. John B. Bowman, who had under- 
taken the work of endowment and improvement, had raised about two 
hundred thousand dollars for these purposes. The buildings at Harrods- 
burg having burned, and the question of a more eligible location having 
been raised, the removal to Lexington was consummated under the most 



534 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

auspicious beginnings, upon the plans elaborated by Mr. Bowman. He 
solicited over one hundred thousand dollars additional in Fayette county, 
and purchased Ashland, the home of Henry Clay, a most attractive site 
for a great university. A combination had been formed by which the 
buildings, the grounds and the proceeds of the endowment fund of Tran- 
sylvania University were to supplement the resources of Kentucky Uni- 
versity. The history of Transylvania University is interwoven with the 
history of the Commonwealth. Over one hundred years ago its founda- 
tions were laid, and its growth nurtured by grants, public and private, in 
the fond hope of making this the leading institution of learning west of the 
Alleghanies. We quote from a brief sketch in the catalogue of Kentucky 
University for 1895 : 

"Transylvania Seminary was chartered by the Legislature of Virginia in 
May, 1783. The first meeting of its trustees was held November 10, 1783, 
near Danville, Ky. Its first session began February i, 1785. After a few 
years the Seminary was moved to Lexington, Ky. Its first session in this 
place began June i, 1789. 

"By an act of the General Assembly of Kentucky, approved Decem- 
ber 22, 1798, Transylvania Seminary and Kentucky Academy were united 
under the name of Transylvania University, January i, 1799. 

"After an existence of sixty-six years, Transylvania University was 
consolidated with Kentucky University by an act of the Legislature, 
approved February 28, 1865, and accepted by the curators of Kentucky 
University June 10, 1865." 

In addition, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, 
with all its endowment funds, was brought into this combination, and 
under the management of the one board of curators of Kentucky Univer- 
sity. Buildings, ample grounds, and accommodations for fifteen hundred 
students were thus auspiciously provided. The property and the endow- 
ment funds thus combined, and available for the laudable aim of establishing 
in Kentucky a university which should realize the dream of old Transyl- 
vania, and rank with the first universities of America, now amounted in 
value to eight hundred thousand dollars. The institution opened with 
faculties for the College of Arts, the Agricultural College, the College of 
the Bible, the Commercial College, and the College of Law. The College 
of Medicine, the Normal College, and other departments were but awaiting 
the opportunity of organization. Five hundred and two students were in 
attendance during the session of 1866-67, ^rid ^^ average of nearly seven 
hundred during the six succeeding sessions until 1872-73 — the attendance 
reaching seven hundred and seventy-two in 1869-70, In the midst of this 
prosperity, which augured a future of hopeful success for an institution of 
great usefulness, prestige, and potency in the cause of education, a change 
of policy and management was resolved upon. This resolve terminated in 
a dissolution of the combination, an abandonment of the project of a com- 



DISSENSIONS AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS. 535 

prehensive university, and a reorganization upon a basis more strictly 
denominational. 

The brotherhood had determined on a separation from the Agricultural 
and Mechanical College and the abolishment of the office of regent. This 
policy was put into execution, and the Bible College also given a separate 
corporate existence and control. The attendance in the College of Arts 
for 1894-95 was two hundred and thirty-one students, and in the College 
of the Bible one hundred and forty-one. That of the other departments 
added would swell the numbers to several hundred more. 

On the death of President Milligan, Henry H. White was elected his 
successor in 1878, resigning voluntarily in 1880. Charles Louis Loos was 
then made president, and yet remains the head of the faculty. Robert 
Graham, the venerable president of the Bible College, resigning in 1895, 
is succeeded by John W. McGarvey. 

The Orphan School at Midway, established and endowed for the free 
education and support of females, the greater portion of whom have be- 
come successful as teachers in the schools of the country and in other use- 
ful callings, has now a capacity to accommodate one hundred ar.d sixty 
pupils annually. 

Another institution of great practical efficiency is the Kentucky Christian 
Education Society, the management of which is now at Lexington. The 
fund of this society is about forty thousand dollars, safely invested in secu- 
rities, the proceeds of which, about twenty-five hundred dollars annually, 
are judiciously apportioned to such students for the ministry in the College 
of the Bible as are worthy and yet without the means of education. This 
fund was solicited and obtained about equally by the joint labors of Elders 
John T. Johnson, Robert Rice, and Z. F. Smith, in 1855-60. A charter 
was obtained and a board of management appointed, of which Z. F. Smith 
was for some twelve yekrs president. From that beginning until date, sev- 
eral hundred young men have received aid necessary to their education, 
the great mass of whom have gone forth to proclaim the Gospel. 

^ The Synod of the Presbyterian Church, in 18 15, erected three new pres- 
byteries — Louisville, out of part of Transylvania; Mississippi, out of part of 
West Tennessee ; and Shilob, out of parts of Muhlenberg and West Tennes- 
see. The quiet and conservative growth of the church throughout the State 
was, during the first third of the century, disturbed, in common with other 
denominational bodies, by the initial movements of the " Reformation," 
which was a conspicuous part of the religious history of the day. An inde- 
pendent presbytery was also organized, February 4, 1810, which, relieving 
itself of the disciplinary restrictions of the synod, began its career of exten- 
sion and outgrowth into the body known as the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church. With such vigor and zeal did the supporters of this important 
movement prosecute their mission that in three years they had grown into a 

I Collins, Vol. I., p. 458. 



536 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

synod, formed in October, 1813, with three presbyteries — Cumberland, 
Logan, and Elk. In its expansion and magnitude as a factor in the religious 
elements of the Commonwealth, it merits a fuller historic notice. 

^In 1796 James McGready, a Presbyterian minister, settled in Logan 
county, Kentucky, and took charge of three congregations — Little Muddy, 
Caspar river, and Red river, the latter situated near the State line separat- 
ing Tennessee and Kentucky. Mr. McGready was a Pennsylvanian by 
birth, and had been educated at what afterward became Jefferson College 
in that State. He commenced his ministry in North Carolina; was a man 
of great earnestness, and denounced open sin and religious formalism with 
imsparing severity. 

Soon after Mr. McGready settled in Kentucky, several other Presbyte- 
rian ministers emigrated from North Carolina and settled in Tennessee, 
among them William Hodge, William McGee and Samuel McAdoo, who 
entered earnestly into the spirit and measures of Mr. McGready in pro- 
moting the revival. There was opposition, and some of it came from 
other ministers of the Presbyterian Church. The extension of the religious 
interest multiplied converts, and new congregations sprang up all over the 
land. The Presbyterian method of supplying the great and increasing 
demand for ministerial labor was slow at that time. Some of the ministers 
who visited the country were not in sympathy with the revival, and their 
labors not acceptable. Rev. David Rice, one of the patriarchs of Presby- 
terianism in Kentucky, visited the Green river and Cumberland countries, 
and, witnessing the great destitution of ministerial labor, advised the revival 
ministers to select some pious and promising young men from their congre- 
gations, and encourage them to prepare for the ministry, as well as their 
circumstances would permit. It was not expected that they would undergo 
the ordinary educational training, as the demand was urgent and the 
means of such training were beyond their reach. The measure was adopted. 
Three young men were in a short time advanced to the ministry, and others 
were encouraged to a preparation for the work. But difficulties grew up. 
The opposers of the revival of course opposed the measure. The difficul. 
ties became so serious that the Synod of Kentucky appointed a commission 
of their body to meet at Caspar river church and endeavor to adjust them. 
The attempt failed. The situation became even more involved and diffi- 
cult. Reference must be made to the history of the times for the facts of 
contention and the final action. 

' There was another question of difficulty between the parties in the Church. 
The young men who were licensed and ordained excepted to what seemed 
to them the doctrine of fatalism, which appeared to be taught in several 
chapters of the confession of faith, and also in the catechism. The 
difficulties, in their view, were insurmountable; still they were advanced to 
the ministry without being required to adopt the doctrinal standards of the 

I Collins, Vol. I, p. 433. 



THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 537 

church in this particular. These proceedings, as well as the licensure and 
ordination of what were called uneducated men, were very offensive to the 
more discfplined portion of the membership and ministry of the Presbyterian 
Church. The discussions were protracted through several years. The 
revival party considered themselves oppressed and wronged, and when there 
seemed no hope of redress, three of the revival ministers- — who were also 
members of the Cumberland Presbytery, which had been constituted and 
then again dissolved by the Synod of Kentucky — determined to reconstitute 
the Cumberland Presbytery by their own authority, as ministers of the 
Presbyterian Church. It was a revolutionary measure, and of course the 
presbytery was an independent body. The presbytery was then constituted, 
on the 4th of February, 1 8 10, by Samuel McAdoo, Finis Ewing, and Samuel 
King. 

This briefly explains the origin of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church 
and also the name by which it is distinguished. The name of the presby- 
tery — which was entirely local and accidental — has adhered to the people. 

Within the limits of Kentucky are seven presbyteries. All these are 
included in one synod — the Synod of Kentucky. The membership num- 
bers about fifteen thousand. 

The first camp-meeting mentioned in our history was in the year 1800, 
at the Caspar river meeting-house, in Logan county. It was held by the 
promoters of the great revival of which the Cumberland Presbyterian Church 
was an outgrowth. The practice was continued for many years ; but as 
the country became settled, and the ministrations of the Gospel became 
more regular, and especially more abundant, the necessity which originated 
these large religious gatherings passed away and they ceased to be a useful 
alternative. 

The theology of the Cumberland Church is conservative. It rejects the 
extremes of both Calvinism and Arminianism. Its doctrinal status is dis- 
tinctively defined. It has a confession of faith, and some theological 
formulas, which it receives as helps ; but Cumberland Presbyterians reject 
the doctrine of predestination, as taught in the theological symbols of the 
Presbyterian Church, under the head of "The Decrees of God." It seemed 
to them to make too close an approach to \\vq. fatalistic theology. At the 
same time they received, as scriptural and full of comfort, the doctrine of 
"the final perseverance" of believers in faith and holiness. Thus the 
birth throes of this large and important body were amid the agitations and 
convulsions of the remarkable revival work of the first decade of the nine- 
teenth century, central in West Kentucky and Tennessee. 

Laying aside the intense and rigid conservatism, and the restrictive dis- 
ciplinary jurisdiction of the venerable parent church, and moved with inspi- 
ration and missionary zeal, akin to that imparted to the following of Wes- 
ley and Whitefield in the evangelic Methodist reform, the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian body built up and increased, until, some few years since, they 






538 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

claimed within the jurisdiction of their one synod and seven presbyteries, 
a membership of over fifteen thousand, almost wholly confined to the west- 
ern half of the State. 

The Parent Presbyterian Church comes prominently to view again. In 
the period from 1840 until 1855 or '56, the harmony and unity of the body 
within was disturbed by what was known as the " New School Schism," and 
which had extended throughout the United States from 1838. In 1840 this 
defection began in Kentucky, at which time an adjourned convention, held 
in Lexington, resolving itself into a synod, assumed an independent stand, 
and soon after joined the New School Assembly. In 1846 it embraced 
three presbyteries — Harmony, Providence, and Green river — with fourteen 
ministers and twenty-one churches, besides nine hundred and fifty-four com- 
municants. From 1834 to 1854, a period of twenty years, statistics show 
that there was but little perceptible increase of membership, or material 
prosperity, in the Presbyterian Church in the State, the total membership 
ranging from eight thousand three hundred and seventy-eight in the former 
to eight thousand four hundred and sixty-five in the latter year. In 1855— 
57, this New School controversy, which raged with much bitterness and 
alienation among ministers and churches throughout the United States, was 
amicably settled, upon terms mutually agreeable, and the disaffected came 
back to the bosom of the old church. 

^ The opening of the civil war in 1861, with all the passions of political 
and religious partyism stirred to their lowest depths, proved a baleful element 
of dissension and division in the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky. The 
General Assembly still held jurisdiction here, for the synod of the South 
had not withdrawn from it. The former body had initiated the practice of 
adopting resolutions upon the state of the country, thus inclining the highest 
court of the church to become a propagandist of political sentiment. In 
behalf of the element within the Confederate jurisdiction, and those in sym- 
pathy with them, Dr. Charles Hodge protested, urging that it was practically 
making a political question a standard of admission into the church. The 
Kentucky Synod of 1861 expressed its grave disapprobation of the action 
of the assembly as being repugnant to the word of God, as interpreted in 
the confession of faith. The act of the assembly was repeated from year 
to year; and in 1864, the synod gave expression to its dissent in very posi- 
tive language. After the close of the great civil strife in 1865, the assembly 
undertook to discipline the conscience of the church into submission to the 
political dicta which had been repeatedly uttered pending the state of war, 
requiring : 

First — The appointment of domestic missionaries to be made only on 
satisfactory evidence of their cordial sympathy with the assembly in her 
testimony on doctrine, loyalty, axi^ freedom. 

Second — All ministers from the Southern States applying for member- 
ship in any of the presbyteries, to be examined as to their participation in 

I Collins, Vol. I.. D. 468. 



SEPARATION AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS. 539 

the rebellion, and their views on the subject of slavery ; and before admis- 
sion, to confess their sin and forsake their error, if their action and views 
did not accord with the assembly's testimony. 

Third — Ordering church sessions to examine all applicants for church 
membership from the Southern States, concerning their conduct and princi- 
ples on the points above specified, and to refuse them admission on the 
same ground. 

Fourth — Requiring presbyteries to erase from their rolls, after the expira- 
tion of a certain time, any minister or ministers who may have fled or been 
sent by civil or military authority beyond the jurisdiction of the United- States 
during the civil war, unless such give satis'^actory evidence of repentance. 

A protest was put forth to this, called a "declaration and testimony 
against the erroneous and heretical doctrines and practices which have ob- 
tained and been propagated in the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
in the last five years." This was signed by quite a number. In the synod 
at Louisville in 1865, an attempt was made to prevent the admission to seats 
of such signers, which was defeated by a vote of one hundred and seven to 
twenty-two. A resolution disapproving the act of the assembly was carried 
by a vote of seventy-six to twenty-two. In the assembly of 1866, at St. 
Louis, the delegate commissioners from Kentucky who had signed the 
"declaration and testimony" were excluded from their seats by the action 
of the body and summoned to appear before it at its next session. When 
the Kentucky Synod met at Henderson the same year, it ignored this ofder 
of the assembly, and openly, upon its records, refused to recognize the 
validity of its acts with reference to the protesting ' • declaration and testi- 
mony " signers. It then proceeded to appoint a committee on missions to 
raise money for their mission uses, to request its ministers to act as evangel- 
ists, and to express the desire and intent to co-operate with all churches and 
synods North and South who might disapprove of the proscriptive action of 
the assembly. At the meeting of the assembly in 1867, the commissioners 
of the synod and presbyteries so dissenting were again refused seats, and 
were declared to be "in no sense true and lawful synod and presbyteries in 
connection with, and under the care and authority of, the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church of the United States." 

The termination of these dissensions and alienations was the separation 
of the declaration and testimony element in Kentucky and a union with the 
Southern Assembly, which met at Mobile in May, 1869. In 1871, there 
were reported seventy-eight ministers, one hundred and twenty-six churches, 
and seventy-six hundred members for the Southern Church in Kentucky. 
Naturally, the distinguishing title of " Northern " and " Southern " attached 
to two bodies so separated upon purely sectional and political issues. Those 
who resisted the declaration and testimony protest and renunciation re- 
mained firm in their loyalty to the assembly. After the division of the synod 
at Henderson, in 1866, this party proceeded to the work of the reorgan- 
ization and perfection of its plans, in accord with the jurisdiction of the old 



SEPARATION AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS. 



541 




REV. T, A. BRACKEN, D. D. 



assembly. An effort was made toward re-union, but in October, 1867, the 
loyal synod, meeting at Covington, expressed its "decided opposition to 
said union upon the basis proposed by the joint committee of the general 
assemblies of the two bodies, which is particularly objectionable." In 1871, 
the respective strength of this division 
of the church in Kentucky was reported 
at fifty ministers and fifty-seven hun- 
dred and twenty-one members. In this 
historic controversy, the loyal element 
was led by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, Dr. 
E. P. Humphrey, and others, and the 
protesting party mainly by Drs. R. L. 
Breck, Stuart Robinson, S. R. Wilson, 
Gelon H. Rout, Thomas A. Bracken, 
and associates. 

The contending sections of the great 
Presbyterian body had, after the heat 
of long controversy, alienated and con- 
gealed into two separate and distinct 
organizations, differing, it appears, not 
substantially in the doctrines and faith 
and forms of the old orthodox body, 
but irreconcilably upon an intrusive political animus and authority, a 
disturbing element in the denominational Troy of peace, utterly foreign to 
the nature and mission of the immaculate religion professed by all Christ's 
followers. The strife drifted into the courts, and of the angry and stubborn 
contentions that characterized the issues none attracted more attention 
within and without the church than the litigation over the question of com- 
mon or exclusive rights in the proprietorship and use of Centre College. 
The claims of the old assembly evidently taking precedence, the young and 
vigorous infant organization, just sprung from her vexed loins, at once, and 
with powerful energy, assumed all the functions of independent denomi- 
national existence, and prepared to meet its extensive wants. Chief among 
these wants was felt the need of a leading institution of learning. 

Central University. — The rise of this young and vigorous institution to 
its present commanding position, within little more than a single decade of 
corporate existence, may be traced to the confluence of two movements, 
each of which was made in the interests of higher education in Kentucky. 
The first of these movements was an ecclesiastical one, and was the result 
of a conference of committees from the two synods of Kentucky, held in 
Lexington in November, 1870. 

The conference proved barren of practical results. The Southern Synod, 
convinced of the futility of all further efforts to secure a recognition of any 
property rights in Centre College, and wearied with long years of litigation 



542 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



^r/' 



in the civil courts, gave up all hope of reinstatement in the possession of 
this time-honored institution, and began to bend all its energies toward the 
establishment of another. 

At the next meeting of the synod, in November, 187 1, resolutions were 
introduced by Dr. Stuart Robinson, and passed by the synod, looking to 
the immediate endowment and equipment of a college upon the same 
plan and with the same scope as the one just lost to the Southern 
church. 

But a higher conception and aim, and a new movement, arose out of the 
general conviction in the minds of men of intelligence, wealth, and culture, 
that the need was of a university of the highest order and upon the most 
liberal scale. 

This conviction found expression in a convention held in the city of 
Lexington on the 7th and 8th days of May, 1872, the members of which, 
after organizing themselves into a permanent association, addressed a memo- 
rial to the Synod of Kentucky, then about to assemble in the same city, 
urging the immediate establishment of an institution of learning, under the 
auspices of the synod, of the highest order and upon the broadest and most 

liberal basis, and pledging to the synod 
the earnest co-operation of the associa- 
tion in an effort to establish the same. 
This appeal met a generous response 
from the synod. A plan of organiza- 
tion was effected, which adjusted the 
mutual relations of the synod and the 
association in the government of the 
institution. Popular confidence was 
aroused, and in an incredibly short time 
two hundred thousand dollars had been 
subscribed toward the proposed endow- 
ment of five hundred thousand dollars. 
A charter was procured, which vested in 
the donors of the endowment, and such 
others as they might associate with them- 
selves, the ownership and control of the 
university, under the title of the Central University of Kentucky. This 
proprietary association, which is known as the Alumni Association of Cen- 
tral University, fills its own vacancies and elects its own successors from 
among the alumni of the institution and its liberal benefactors, thus for- 
ever keeping the university under the control of those who have the 
highest interest in its welfare. Its government and the management of its 
funds are entrusted to the chancellor and fifteen curators, two-thirds of 
whom, under the charter, must be members of the alumni association. 
Richmond, the county seat of Madison county, in the midst of a beau- 




REV. GELON H. ROUT, D. D. 




THE FIRST SESSION. 



543 



tiful and productive portion of the bluegrass region of Kentucky, was 
selected for its location. 

Here, on Tuesday, September 22, 1874, the university opened its first 
session in a large and commodious building, that had just been erected in 
the center of the spacious grounds, commanding a view of the country for 
many miles, and of the mountains nearly or quite to the Tennessee and 
Virginia lines. 

Rev. R. L. Breck was the first chancellor, and was supported by an able 
board, conspicuous in which, for his in- 
terest and zeal, was the lamented S. P. 
Walters, of Richmond. In the struggles 
of the Presbyterian church, Dr. Breck 
was an early leader. Of strong con- 
victions, of unwavering courage, and 
devoted to the interests of Church and 
State, he was ever ready to contend for 
what he deemed the truth and right. 
The best energies of his life were given 
to Central University, and to him, while 
in this service, was its founding mainly 
due. Life, health, and personal consid- 
erations were sacrificed in its interests. 
Failing health necessitated his resignation 
as chancellor and seeking its restoration 
in the milder climate of California. Dr. Breck is a son of Hon. Daniel 
Breck, whose wife was a daughter of General Levi Todd, and was born at 
Richmond, May 8, 1827. He graduated at Centre College, and studied 
theology at Alleghany and Princeton. His ministry was in Kentucky, 
Macon (Georgia), and New Albany until the war; since 1865, at Rich- 
mond, Kentucky, and in California. 

Three of the four colleges contemplated under the charter opened at 
this time. 

Notwithstanding the favorable auspices under which the university was 
inaugurated, it soon began to encounter waves of financial trouble. Difficulty 
was experienced in collecting the subscriptions. The chancellor. Dr. Breck, 
resigned his important post. Dr. Pratt also resigned the presidency of the 
College of Letters. The College of Law suspended for want of proper sup- 
port. The situation was critical, and many of the friends of the university 
became timorous as to its power to survive. Just then the attention of the 
alumni association and of the synod was called to Rev. L. H. Blanton, of 
Paris, Kentucky, a comparatively young man, but of ripe scholarship and 
rare executive ability, and already recognized as one of the foremost 
educators of the State. He was called to the chancellorship, and Rev. J. 
V. Logan, D. D., synod's professor of ethics, was promoted to the vacant 




REV. R. L. BRECK. 



544 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



presidency; and while Dr. Logan presided witli admirable judgment over 
the college, Dr. Blanlon threw all his energy into the work of consolidating 
and broadening the financial basis of the institution. His wise methods 
and cheerful words soon restored the fullest confidence in the future of 
the university. Generous contributions to the endowment again began to 
flow in, and the institution has gone steadily forward, increasing every 
year in patronage, lifting higher every year the standard of instruction and 
scholarship, until now it stands abreast of any similar institution in the 
country, and is regarded as one of the chief ornaments of the Common^ 
wealth, 

Lindsey Hughes Blanton, D. D., was born in Cumberland Co., Va., 
July 29, 1832, and was graduated at Hampden Sidney College; also at 
Danville Theological Seminary, in Kentucky, His services have been with 
the Presbyterian Church at Versailles, at Salem, Virginia, and as chaplain in 
the Confederate army. In 1868 he was pastor of the Paris church, Ken- 
tucky, which was greatly increased and strengthened under his ministry. 
The number of students in attendance upon its various colleges for 

the year 1894-95 was seven hundred 
and fifty-four, distributed over many 
States. Its faculties of instruction, in 
the colleges at present in operation, 
are those in literature, in medicine, 
in dentistry, and in theology. 

The university is particularly for- 
tunate in its chancellor, to whom it 
owes in large measure its present 
influence and prosperity. Though 
comparatively a young man, he has 
developed the highest qualities as 
an educator. An able and popular 
preacher, an erudite and accurate 
scholar, he combines with these gifts 
large and liberal views of the subject 
of education, and that rare executive 
and administrative ability which enables him to carry out his ideals as an 
educator, giving them practical form. 

A provisional class in theology was organized and instructed until the 
permanent establishment of the college at Louisville, in 1893, under the 
style of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Auxiliary schools are 
provided to be established in the State, in the charter of Central Univer- 
sity; two are located, one each at the sites of Elizabethtown and 
Jackson, 

The reports of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, for some 
years, give us proximately the following statistics of interest : Total com- 




JAfyiES VENABLE LOGAN, D. D. 



THE ALUMNI OF CENTRE COLLEGE. 



545 




REV. LINDSEY H BLANTON. 

nunicants, fifteen thousand; Sunday-school scholars, ten thousand. Of the 
urns contributed for various purposes annually, we have enumerated : For 
ustentation, seven thousand dollars; evangelistic fund, fifteen thousand 
lollars; invalid fund, fifteen hundred dollars; foreign missions, ten thousand 
loUars; education, seven thousand dollars; publication, fifteen hundred dol- 
ars; pastors' salaries, sixty-two thousand dollars; congregational purposes, 
eventy-five thousand dollars; and miscellaneous, seven thousand dollars; 
L total of two hundred and ten thousand dollars. 

After the separation of the North and South divisions of the church, 
venerable Centre College, with all its possessions and prestige, remained 
mder the auspices and management of the old assembly, at Danville. 
50 much does it enter into the educational history of Kentucky that we 
lave elsewhere treated of its origin and relations to other great institutions 
)f learning of the past. Chartered in 1819, it was under State control 
mtil 1824, when the synod of Kentucky purchased its franchises and 
control. 

Centre College is thus shown to be one of the oldest institutions of learn- 
ng in Kentucky, or in the South or West, having sent out its first graduating 
:lass in 1824. It has been prosecuting its work successfully, and without 
nterruption, from that day to this. No year has passed that it has not 
lent its graduates into the field. Among the alumni are many, both of the 
iving and the dead, who have greatly distinguished themselves in their 



35 



546 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



respective professions, and have attained the liighest positions of honor and 
trust, especially throughout the South and West, where they chiefly reside, 
or where they did reside while they lived. 

Centre College has educated seventeen college presidents, forty-one col- 
lege professors, fourteen representatives in Congress, four United States 
senators, five governors of States, one vice-president of the United States, 
one justice of the United States Supreme Court, twenty-four circuit judges, 
state and national, thirty-seven editors, etc. No institution in Kentucky 
has sent out, year by year, a class of graduates reflecting more credit and 
honor on their Alma Mater. 

Of its distinguished presidents, no other was so long and prominently 
identified with its history, during the ante-bellum period, as John Clark 
Young. This distinguished minister and scholar has left the impress of his 
character and work, as a leading educator, as widely and indelibly upon the 
educated mind of the present and preceding generations of the South and 
West as any other man in our history. He was a transplant from Pennsyl- 
vania to Kentucky, in the year 1828. He had been thoroughly trained in a 
classical school, Columbia College, in New York city, and graduated in 
Dickinson College, Pennsylvania; after which he spent four years of study 
in Princeton Theological Seminary, twice graduating with honors. But two 
years in Kentucky, he accepted the presidency of Centre College in 1830, 
and served with that success and favor which have made his name and ad- 
ministration so much a part of the most attractive features of the peaceful 
and progressive history of the Commonwealth, until his death in 1857 — 
'^^^^ twenty-seven years. In the year of his 

death, there were in attendance on the col- 
lege and its academy two hundred and 
fifty-two pupils and forty-seven graduates. 
He was a firm and uniform advocate of 
I emancipation, and signalized his devotion 
I to the cause by his able writings and ad- 
^^;^^ J dresses upon this exciting topic. His 
style of speaking was most effective from 
the tenderness, power, and fascination of 
his appeals to the heart and conscience, 
in which he excelled, as well as in the 
freshness, originality, and force of his 
illustrations and logic. He was always 
superior as a public speaker, rising often 
Few men were more 




^a 




JOHN CLAPK YOUNG. 



to the plane of most attractive and pleasing oratory, 
beloved while living, or died more lamented. 

It is a fitting tribute to the name and worth of this eminent educator, 
that his son should succeed to the presidency of this venerable and honored 
institution. On the death of Dr. Ormond Beatty in 1890, William C. 







CENTRE COLLEGE STILL IN FAVOR. 547 

Young was chosen to the vacancy occasioned thereby. He reluctantly ac- 
cepted, amid the protests and appeals of the members of the Presbyterian 
church, in Louisville, to whom he had endeared himself by years of faithful 
ministry. As president of Centre College, and as a minister of great power 
and popularity, the mantle of the father is worthily worn by the son. 

President Ormond Beatty was born in 
Mason county, Kentucky, in 1815, and 
ecame a student of Centre College in his 
eventeenth year, graduating in 1835. His 
rare abilities and proficiency as a student 
led to his appointment to ihe professorship 
of natural science in his A/ff/a Alafer be- 
fore his graduation. He accepted on con- 
dition that he be allowed to spend a year 
at Yale College. 

From this chair he was transferred, in 
1847, to that of mathematics, but in 1852 
was restored to his original chair. In 
1870, he was elected president of the col- 
lege and to the chair of metaphysics. His 
versatile, thorough scholarship enabled him 
to fill all these positions with ability. Thus, 
it will be seen that Dr. Beatty acted as president and professor in Centre Col- 
lege for half a century. He was also, several times appointed commissioner 
to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and served under ap- 
pointment of that body and others in positions of highest trust and respon- 
sibility. He was a delegate to the first general council of the Presbyterian 
alliance in Edinburgh in 1877, and also to the second meeting of that body 
in Philadelphia in 1880. In 1882, he was elected the first president of the 
College Educational Association of Kentucky. In 1883, he represented 
the trustees of the Theological Seminary at Danville, before the General 
Assembly at Saratoga, to show reasons for not disturbing the relations and 
control of that institution. 

Dr. Beatty was a man of great natural ability and a profound scholar, pos- 
sessing a mind singularly logical and practical. A man of remarkably equa- 
ble temper and a speaker of rare force and clearness. He had few equals as 
a public debater. Plis death occurred June 24, 1890. 

Though colleges of a high grade have successfully multiplied in the/ 
South-west since the civil war. Centre College continues in favor with thef 
patronizing public. In the college and academy for the session of 1884-85, 
the attendance of students was two hundred and eight. 

The financial status of the college is set forth in the report of the finan- 
cial agent for 1885, as follows : General fund, in bonds, stocks, and notes, in 
productive real estate, in endowment of the chair of vice-president, and 



PRESIDENT ORMOND BEATTY. 



548 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Other funds, $189,709; in buildings and grounds, library, apparatus, etc., 
$70,500; total, $260,209. 

In May, 1885, the strength and resources of the old Synod of Kentucky 
are represented in the statistics of the official report of that date, showing 
three presbyteries, sixty-one ministers, eighty-nine churches, two hundred 
and forty-four elders, and one hundred and sixty-nine deacons. There were 
added to the church, on examination, five hundred and twenty-five; on cer- 
tificates, two hundred and twenty-five, making a total membership of sixty- 
three hundred and seventy-four. Of baptisms, there were one hundred and 
ninety-two adults and one hundred and fifty-four infants. There are fifty-two 
hundred and ninety-eight Sunday-school members. The contributions for the 
year ending May, 1885, were: For home missions, $6,687; foreign mis- 
sions, $3,641; education, $652; publication, $326; church erection, $5,837; 
relief fund, $638; freedmen, $636; aid to colleges, $6,189; sustentation, 
$231; General Assembly, $415; congregational, $99,450, and miscella- 
neous, $13,354; total, $138,056. 

1 The Roma7i Catholic Church, in 1800, had no bishop and but two priests 
in Kentucky. There were two churches and eleven stations, with a mem- 
bership of about two thousand. In 1884, the statistics of the church show 
the Catholics to have two bishops, one hundred and ninety-three priests, 
two hundred and fourteen churches and chapels, five colleges, fifty-two 
academies and select schools, one hundred parochial schools, sixteen 
thousand three hundred and forty-four pupils in charge, nine asylums, four 
hospitals, and a following of two hundred thousand. The church has 
preserved a wonderful unity and steadiness throughout the century of its 
existence, and seems to be solidly and permanently grounded for its work 
in the future. It has passed through many trials and vicissitudes in this 
time, but in all these the management of its interests appears to have been 
in skilled, prudent, and discreet hands, equal to all emergencies. Its greatest 
shock received was, perhaps, during the 
" Know Nothing " political movement of 
1855, which spent its violent and pro- 
scriptive force within a year or two in an 
organized assault upon the foreign ele- 
ment of the country and the Roman 
Catholic Church, which embraced the 
great body of these in its folds. It was 
an organization against the antecedents 
and declarations of our republican insti- 
tutions, and needed but the sober thought 
of reconsideration to reverse its pur- 
poses and policy by public sentiment. 
During the turbulent and violent excite- 




BISHOP MARTIN JOHN SPALDING. 



I Webb's Catholicity in Kentucky, p. 580. 



» 



SKETCH OF BISHOP SPALDING. 549 

ment which for a brief period characterized its history, while acts of local 
and personal violence were mutually unavoidable, due credit was given to 
the leadership of the church for the earnest and co-operative efforts made by 
it to subdue and restrain from violence and to preserve law and order. 

Among the very able and distinguished men who have given themselves 
to the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church in Kentucky, Right Rev. 
Martin John Spalding may be said to be pre-eminent in the intermediate 
period of our State history. He was born near Lebanon, Kentucky, in 
1810, of Maryland parentage. He graduated here in 1826, giving marked 
evidence of his intellectual superiority. The next four years he spent in 
the diocesan seminary at Bardstown, preparing himself for the priesthood, 
under the instruction of Bishop David and Rev. Kendrick. In 1830, he set 
out for Rome, in company with James M. Lancaster, where both entered 
the renowned College of the Propaganda. After four years of severe study, 
he passed a most rigid examination, publicly defending two hundred and 
fifty-six propositions through a critical ordeal of seven hours. He next pre- 
pared himself for holy orders, and was ordained a sub-deacon on the 3d, a 
deacon on the loth, and priest on the 13th of August. He returned home 
and assumed pastoral charge at Bardstown, and in 1836 became a leading 
editor of the Catholic Advocate, the organ of the church in Kentucky. In 
1838, he was called to the presidency of St. Joseph's College, in which po- 
sition he served for two years. In 1844, he became vicar-general at Louis- 
ville, and the same year gave to the public his admirable "Sketches of 
Pioneer Kentucky," which he had been compiling for some years. 

In 1847, Rev. Spalding received from Rome the bull appointing him co- 
adjutor to Bishop Flaget, in which position he performed the main and active 
labors of the bishop himself, and succeeded the latter on his death, in 1850. 
He was an ardent advocate of religious education, and delivered himself of 
the following pronounced sentiment on the common Catholic objection to 
common-school education under State auspices: "Education without re- 
ligion is the body without the soul, the building without the foundation, 
philosophy without fundamental principles," an utterance of profound sig- 
nificance, if secular education is entirely without the corresponding provision 
for religious instruction. Finding the ministerial forces inadequate for the 
needs of his jurisdiction, the bishop visited and traveled Europe in search 
of re-enforcing assistants. He succeeded in organizing and extending his 
work by the introduction from Europe of five ministers of priestly orders, 
four deacons, and one sub deacon. In 1864, he was installed seventh arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, in the presence of forty thousand spectators. He con- 
vened the second plenary council of Baltimore ; distinguished himself at the 
Ecumenical council at the Vatican at Rome in 1869-70; returned to Amer- 
ica amid many public honors at Baltimore and Washington; during his arch- 
iepiscopate, erected many new churches, established new schools, founded 
and endowed new works of charity, and in April, 1872, died, honored and 



55^ 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




lamented at home and abroad. His chief works of authorship were "Life 
and Times of Bishop Flaget," "Review of D'Aubigne's History of the Ref- 
ormation," "Miscellanea," and "Lectures on the Evidences of Christian- 

ity." 

1 The Methodist Church, with its Arminian sympathies, was deeply agi- 
tated by the great revh'al, to which it gave countenance and encouragement. 

In the earliest decades of the century 
its pulpits were occupied by some men 
of marked evangelic power, chief among 
whom were William McKendree and 
Learner Blackman. Later, these were 
re-enforced by Marcus Lindsey, Jona- 
than Stamper, William McMahon, Will- 
iam Adams, Samuel Parker, and Henry 
B. Bascom. Among all, the character 
and genius of Bascom shone out with 
greatest luster, in time. He was born in 
New York, in 1796, and his father im- 
migrated to Kentucky in 181 2, in indi- 
gent circumstances. After his twelfth 
year, Henry never attended school; yet, 
REV. HENRY B. BASCOM, at Seventeen, he was licensed to preach, 

and was appointed to a circuit. He was of striking and commanding per- 
sonal appearance, with a fine address. In the pulpit his style was ornate 
and elegant, and so unlike was he to the ordinary members of the ministry, 
who went in and out daily among the people, that a prejudice was formed 
against him which did him great injury and injustice. Wherever he ap- 
peared in public ministrations, his superior attractions and power absorbed 
attention. In thought and action he was independent, while always loyal to 
his church. This gave him a marked individuality and independence of 
character, and made him subject to annoying oppositions, if not persecu- 
tions, in the ministry, and lost him, to a large extent, the sympathy of the 
church, to the interest of which he was sacrificing his life-labors. 

He preached successively in the Danville and Madison circuits, Ken- 
tucky, and at Steubenville, Ohio, when, in 1823, through the influence of 
Henry Clay, his great admirer, he was elected chaplain to the lower house 
of Congress. During the intervals between the sessions of Congress, he 
preached often in the large cities of the East, and with great success and 
popularity. From 1831, he filled a professorship in Augusta College, Ken- 
tucky, for ten years, having the degrees of D. D. and LL. D. conferred on 
him. He served also several years as president of Transylvania University. 
In 1845, when the organization of the Methodist Church South was deter- 
mined on, as chairman of the committee on that subject. Dr. Bascom pre- 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 453. 



STATISTICS OF THE METHODIST CHURCH. 



551 



pared a very able report, which was approved by the body. In the General 
Conference of 1846, at Petersburg, Virginia, he was elected editor of the 
Methodist Quarterly Review, and appointed chairman of the board of 
:ommissioners to settle the controversy between the North and South divis- 
ons. His death occurred September 8, 1850, at Lexington, Kentucky. 

In 1820, the total population of Kentucky was 685,049. The member- 
ihip of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the same time was 15,670, about 
)ne forty-third of the population being Methodists. In 1830, the population 
)f the State was 854,194, while the Methodist Church had increased to 
28,189, being in the ratio to the total population of about one to thirty. 

In i860, were reported fifteen districts, embracing one hundred and sev- 
;nty-three circuits and stations, to which one hundred and eighty-three 
preachers were appointed. The membership was 46,181 white, and 10,634 
:olored — an increase since 1850 of 11,584. 

In 1870, were reported eighteen districts, embracing two hundred and 
hirteen circuits and stations, to which two hundred and thirty-five preachers 
A'ere appointed. The membership was 45,522 white, and four hundred and 
nghty-seven colored. 

The statistics thus far show the numerical strength of the Methodist Epis- 
;opal Church South. During this decade, the colored Methodists were set 
jff into a separate organization, which accounts for the apparent decrease 
n their membership. 

The reports for 1891 show the membership of the Southern church to 
DC 72,242 whites, and ninety colored; total, 72,332. Of the Northern 
Methodist Church, there were reported for the year 1885, 17,975 ^^^^ mem- 
bers, and 2,378 probationers, one hundred and fifty-two local preachers, 

two hundred and twenty-one churches, 
one hundred and forty-eight Sunday- 
schools, and 1,214 teachers and 8,661 
scholars in the same. Besides these, 
the latest statistics give over thirteen 
thousand colored members in different 
organizations. 

1 Hubbard Hinde Kavanaugh, D. D , 
was born on the 14th day of January, 
1802, in Clark county, Kentucky; was 
converted in November, 181 7; in Jan- 
uary of the following year he connected 
himself with the Methodist Episcojjal 
Church ; was licensed to preach at 
Pleasant Green, Boifrbon county, in 
1822; at the conference of 1823 was 
HUBBARD HINDE KAVANAUGH. admitted as a probationer ; was married 

1 Biographic Sketch, by T. J. Dodd, D. D. 




55^ HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

July 24, 1828, to Mrs. Margaret C. Green, daughter of Mr. Charles Railey, 
of Woodford county; in 1837, was appointed by the governor to the super- 
intendency of public instruction of the State of Kentucky; was a delegate 
to the General Conference in New York in 1844, at which measures were 
instituted that resulted in the establishment of the Southern branch of the 
church, in which he was afterward a distinguished light. His wife dying 
in 1863, he was married a second time, two years subsequently, to Mrs. M. 
D, P. Lewis, at Cynthiana, Kentucky. He died, still actively engaged in 
the arduous duties of his office, March 19, 1884, at Columbus, Mississippi, 
after having attained the ripe old age of eighty-two years. 

Bishop Kavanaugh was one of the comparatively few men who may be 
justly called both great and good. In him the conditions of development 
were more than ordinarily favorable to the germination and growth of the 
higher intellectual faculties and the nobler moral virtues. 

In the year 1854, he was elected and ordained to the bishopric. To this 
high office he had passed up through all grades of appointments, and had 
experienced both the pleasures and the pains incident to life in the Metho- 
dist itinerancy. From the first his aim had been single. He had never, 
either by disability of any kind, or by any interest of his own, been deflected 
from the onward path of a dutiful son in the Gospel of his Lord. Through 
a long course of years of active ministerial service, therefore, he was qualified 
for the episcopal chair. In this new and exalted relationship new capacities 
were developed as new responsibilities were assumed. 

Taken all in all, Bishop Kavanaugh was one of the best and greatest 
men our country has ever produced. Eloquent, powerful in the pulpit as 
he was, his greatest excellence was in his goodness. We .seriously doubt 
whether the Church has known a better man. Pure, guileless, unsuspect- 
ing, he seemed not to know wrong. Earnest, humble, laborious, he preached 
around among his brethren as their kind, loving friend, and the most bashful 
boy felt at home in his presence. 

The leading institution of learning of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
North, in Kentucky, is Augusta College, at Augusta. It is renowned in 
history as among the first attempts in the younger days of our Common- 
wealth to found a college of high grade for classical and scientific learning; 
but more than this, for its claim to be the first college ever established in 
the world under the patronage of the Methodist Church. It was founded 
in 1822, and among its former presidents were Martin Ruter, D. D., and 
Joseph S. Tomlinson, D. D. H. B. Bascom, D. D., and Burr H. McCown, 
I). D. , were of its professors. It enrolled a patronage of one hundred to 
one hundred and fifty students for years, and among its alumni were some 
of the ablest and most distinguished men of the country. Within a few 
years past it has ceased to exist as a college under denominational auspices. 
The buildings and grounds were converted to the popular uses of a local 
school for the town of Augusta. 



THE STATE COLLEGE. 553 

Dr. Daniel Stevenson is justly esteemed as one of the ablest ministers and 
aders of his church, and is identified as an active and efficient factor in 
le educational history of the State. From 1863 to 1867, he served, by 
rtue of his election to the office, as superintendent of public instruction 
r Kentucky. Though his term of office was during the calamitous and 
sorderly period of the civil war, his administration was characterized by 
ithfulness and efficiency throughout. He yet lives to serve his people and 
e country in the cause of education and religion, as the efficient president 
■ the college at Barboursville, Ky. 

The Kentucky Wesleyan University was established at Millersburg, in 
566, under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, but 
moved and re-located at Winchester in 1891. Though the buildings 
id grounds are spacious and commodious, the endowment fund is inade- 
late, as yet, to carry forward the plan of such an institution as was origi- 
dly contemplated. Situated in the midst of a beautiful and healthful portion 

the bluegrass region, and with an able faculty and full course of college 
udy, it offers attractions for the student who wishes to avail himself of a 
assical and scientific education of a high order. 

Other colleges and academies of repute are established under the care 
id friendly auspices of the Methodist Church, for the education of both 
ales and females. Conspicuous among these may be mentioned Science 
ill Academy, at Shelby ville, so popularly conducted by Mrs. Julia Tevis 
r nearly fifty years, and with a patronage and success unsurpassed in the 
ate. This famous female school is yet in a flourishing condition, under 
e management of President Poynter and his able faculty. Russellville 
jmale College, under the charge of President Murphy, and others, are also 
lite noted. 

Among the new factors of influence in our educational advancement may 
; ranked the State College of Kentucky. Agricultural and mechanical col- 
ges in the United States owe their origin to an act of Congress passed in 
!62, donating public lands for their endowment. The amount donated 
as thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative in the Federal 
ongress. Under this allotment, Kentucky received three hundred and 
irty thousand acres. This, if judiciously disposed of, would have formed 
1 ample endowment. The land scrip was sold for fifty cents per acre, and 
e amount realized, one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, invested in 
entucky six per cent, bonds, of which the State became custodian in trust 
r the college. 

The connection formed with Kentucky University was severed in 1878. 
he city of Lexington, anxious to retain the college, offered to the State its 
ty park, containing fifty-two acres of land, as a site for its buildings. The 
ty and county supplemented this offer by fifty thousand dollars in city and 
)unty bonds, to be used for the erection of buildings, which was ac- 
;pted. 



554 HISTORY OK KENTUCKY. 

A charter was granted the new institution. In accordance with the re- 
quirements of the organic act, ** those branches relating to agriculture and 
the mechanical arts, including military tactics, "are obligatory; but the Board 
of Trustees, nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, are 
allowed a wide discretion in regard to the addition of other departments of 
study. 

The State College of Kentucky occupies fifty-two acres of ground within 
the city limits, the gift of the city, the estimated value of which is $250,000. 
The buildings erected upon it represent a value of $130,000. The machin- 
ery, cabinets, museums and apparatus represent $40,000 more. Besides 
these, the college owns a farm, used for experimental work in agriculture, 
worth $25,000. The material assets of the college in grounds, buildings, 
farm and equipments represent not far from $450,000. Its course of study 
is as follows: Agricultural; two scientific courses; civil engineering; 
mechanical engineering; classical course; veterinary course; two normal 
school courses and an academy, designed to prepare students for the college 
classes. The number of professors in the college and employes in the 
station is twenty-six, and more than six hundred students have been enrolled 
in the various courses of study within the last year. Students who desire 
to supplement their resources by the products of their labor have an oppor- 
tunity to work on the college grounds or on the farm, and receive compen- 
sation therefor at the rate of six to ten cents per hour. 

The income of the college is, approximately, fifty thousand dollars yearly, 
derived from the interest on the bonds held by the State Treasurer, for its 
benefit, and from a tax of half of one cent on each hundred dollars of tax- 
able property in the State, and other sources. 

Free tuition is provided by law for four students from each legislative 
representative district, and also for a like number of beneficiaries in the 
normal school. 

The buildings are new, and consist of a college structure capable of 
accommodating five hundred students, dormitory, with dining-room and lodg- 
ings for one hundred ; president's house and commandant's house. 

The institution is in a prosperous condition, with an apparently bright 
future before it. Its president, J. K. Patterson, has labored with untiring 
activity for its good, and his friends will credit him with a large share of its 
success. 

In 1832, John Breathitt was elected Governor, and James T. Morehead, 
Lieutenant-Governor, and Lewis Sanders made Secretary of State ; thus in- 
augurating a Jacksonian Democratic administration for the succeeding four 
years in Kentucky. In the same year, Jackson defeated Clay for the Presi- 
dency of the United States, in a contest in which the issues of the great 
national parties were never more distinctively defined, as upon the question 
of a national bank, the tariff for protection, the internal improvement policy, 
etc. The prejudice against Mr. Adams was an incubus upon the prestige 



FINAN'CIAL DISTRESS. 555 

f Clay, especially after the rancorous controversy over the allegations of 
argain and collusion. Any man of less resistant and recuperative power 
lan Mr. Clay must have been borne down by the military and magnetic 
)rce of Jackson. As it was, Kentucky gave her favorite son a majority of 
ver seven thousand. The ascendancy he had gained in his State was 
stained until the feebleness of age marked the turning point in his brilliant 
areer. It was his mission at home, while taking no prominent part in 
uestions of State economy, to found and strengthen a conservative spirit 
lat came with the increase of wealth and culture of the people. No other 
lan living could have then breasted the onward and sweeping wave of 
ickson's popularity in the Commonwealth; and amid the changes of par- 
es and politics which have come and gone, the spirit with which the great 
atesman and orator impressed Kentucky has never ceased to inspire. 

We have given elsewhere the main political events of this administrative 
:rm. In 1836, James Clark became governor, and Charles A. Wickliffe, 
eutenant-governor, and James M. Bullock was appointed secretary of state, 
lark dying in September, 1839, Wickliffe succeeded him. During this 
;rm, the bubbles of speculation which had been blown began to explode 
ver the country, and the pall of financial distress to spread in Kentucky, 
> elsewhere. But the most hopeless and desolate period the people of the 
ommonwealth have ever known was in 1840 and 1841, when, upon the 
Hiig ticket, Robert P. Letcher was made governor, Manlius V. Thomson 
eutenant-governor, and James Harlan secretary of state, and of which we 
ave written elsewhere. 

The views are so pointedly and lucidly expressed, that we quote the 
assages from Shaler's Kentucky on this interesting period: "This episode 
osed the remarkable events in the history of the financial development of 
le State. From this time on the Commonwealth's banks were singularly 
)und and efficient institutions. They were commonly domestic in their 
'^stem; they trusted for their strength to a mixture of control exercised by 
le State through its ownership of stock and the citizen stockholders. They 
ave to the people a better currency than existed in any State west of the 
lountains. Even in the trial of the civil ^yar they stood, as they still stand, 
nbroken. Their strength is so great that although their currency has been 
estroyed by the laws of the United States, they remain the mainstays of 
le business of the Kentucky people outside of one or two of the larger 
ties." 

There is no other case in the history of these American States, where the 
roblem of an exchange system has been so beautifully shown in all its 
arious workings. In the first period of the State's history, we had a long 
me in which the industry was carried on in the main by barter. Then 
ime the period when the Spanish currency of the dollar was the mainstay 
f commerce. It is likely that the singular philo-Spanish party got some of 

I American Commonwealths, p. 190. 



556 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

its influence from the use of this currency. A sense of kinship comes with 
a common money. Relations with Spain that now seem so impracticable 
probably looked more natural to a people who used Spanish money in the 
most of their transactions. When the want of small money became great, 
as it did about the beginning of the century, the need was met by cutting j 
the Spanish dollar into four or eight parts, called "quarters" or " bits." | 
These angular fragments of " cut money" passed current for thirty years or 
so, and were the subject of several legislative enactments. This plan of 
dividing coins into segments was a singular, if not unique, device, and long 
served a good purpose. 

When the commerce of this people came to the point where a better 
system of money became necessary, we find them learning the hard lesson 
of banking by the dear way of experience, and profiting by that experience ] 
in a singularly practical fashion. Moreover, the advance of the Kentuck- 
ians in the methods of government can, to a great degree, be attributed to ! 
the complete discussion of the principle of public faith that they had then 
to decide in the matter of the Commonwealth Bank and the new court ques- 
tions. In no other American State can the money problem be found in such 
a good position for study. The careful student will there find a wonderful 
catalogue of monetary expedients. 

From their trials in business the people more than OHce turned, with j 
their usual eagerness, to the questions of national politics. The wide habit j 
of thought bred in their early wrestle with national problems, such as the \ 
first forty years of the life of the Commonwealth opened to them, made such j 
matters always of paramount interest. | 

The Harrison phenomenal *' Hard Cider " presidential campaign of 1840 | 
was decided, as was the first Jackson campaign, on the memories of the \ 
war of 1812. Van Buren received 32,616, while Harrison's vote was 58,489, 
a majority of nearly two to one, and this despite the fact that Richard M. 
Johnson, the candidate for vice-president with Van Buren, was aKentuckian < 
of Kentuckians. The Whig vote was doubtless reduced by the popularity 1 
of this illustrious citizen. 1 

In 1844, Clay was the Whig candidate for the presidency. Although 
he was supported by his party with unsurpassed ardor, his majority in the 1 
State was only about nine thousand, a great falling off from the majority 
given to Harrison four years before. This marks a peculiar phase of poli- 
tics in Kentucky, which we must now explain — another testimony to the 
belief in our manifest destiny. 

In this election, the Democratic party represented the sentiment for the 
annexation of Texas, which now was becoming a burning question in Amer- 
ican politics. The attempt which Texas was then making for independence 
of Mexico claimed and gained the keenest sympathy from Kentucky. Many 
of the leaders in that remarkable conflict were from this Commonwealth, and 
they all represented the motives of that Western life which, in time of trial. 



SYMPATHY FOR TEXAS. 557 

] knows no State bounds. There have been few incidents in American his- 
3 tory so calculated to interest the spirit of adventure. The struggle was 
3 romantic in its object and its details. For years the Kentucky people had 
^ been deprived of all share in the excitement of war. War for political 
;: objects has always had an absorbing interest to a people who have the out- 
going type of mind, combined with rude vigor. Moreover, the growing 
c interest in the slavery problem led many strong advocates of that institution 
to desire an extension of territory in the South-west, into which the slave 
g population might find its way. These influences led many persons tempo- 
rarily to detach themselves from the old Whig or conservative party, and to 
ijoin the other, that advocated aiding Texas in her conflict with Mexico and 
-her admission into the United States. The same influence acted through- 
=out the Union, but with more energy in Kentucky than elsewhere, because 
. the force of sympathy with the Texan cause was stronger than in any other 
;Whig State. Nothing else could show so well the ga'n in the conservatism 
rof Kentucky as the fact that, despite all these natural incentives to sympathy 
.with Texas, the State was held by a majority of over nine thousand in resist- 
ance to the project of a war with Mexico. The basis of Clay's opposition 
[to the annexation of Texas was the probable tendency to the extension of 
slavery that this annexation would bring about. 

The defeat of Clay was the final blow to his long-deferred hopes of occu- 
ipying the chair of the presidency at Washington. He still remained the 
jforemost figure of Kentucky politics, but his loftiest aim ended with this 
-defeat. This failure of their candidate was the more exasperating because 
treachery in New York determined the issue against him. The nation at 
ilarge abandoned the cautious policy that, strangely enough, had come to be 
jthe motive of Kentucky, which in the preceding generation was the most 
radical State in the Union. Had it been left to Kentucky, despite her 
natural sympathy with Texas and the pro-slavery South, there would prob- 
lably have been no annexation of new territory for many years, and slavery 
[might have been hemmed within its old bounds. Such was the potent 
influence of one great mind over the constituency of a Commonwealth. 

lit will easily be seen that the first settlers of Kentucky, though they came 
jfrom slave-holding colonies, brought few negroes into the State, As soon 
r^as the pioneer life began to give place to a commercial activity, and men 
nook to planting for profit, and not for subsistence, the negro population 
• rapidly increased. From 1790 to 1840, there was a rapid gain of the Afri- 
can element of the population represented in per cents, at the several dec- 
ades, as follows. The upper line gives the per cent, of increase in the 
preceding decade in the black, the lower in the white, population : 

1800. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. i860. 1870. 
' Colored .... 224 99 57 20^ loi.^ 152^ 7 —6 

Whites .... 200 84 36 22 131^ 26 17 14 

I Shaler's Commonwealth. ' 



558 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

Thus the African race increased more rapidly than the white up to 1830. 
In 1840, the white population shows a notable increase over the black. 
This gain is more marked in 1850; it is extended in i860, and in 1870 the 
black population shows an absolute decrease. In a small way, this actual 
decrease in 1870 may be due to the emigration of the negroes during the 
war, but it will be noticed that it very nearly agrees with the series of 
changes belonging to the earlier decades. We may say that this decrease 
would hive come about in the natural succession of changes, even if the 
war had not been fought or emancipation established. There is great 
difficulty in analyzing the history of slavery in Kentucky. There are no 
sufficient records on which to base the study of the problem. 

In the first place, the reader should remember that only a small part of 
the Commonwealth is fit for anything like plantation life. The greater 
part of the area requires the thrift and personal care of the owner to make 
its cultivation remunerative. Even that part of the land of Kentucky that 
may be used for tillage in a large way is decidedly more profitable in the 
hands of farmers who cultivate small areas. Next, it should be noticed that 
the whole system of Kentucky life fell from the first into something essen- 
tially like the yeomanry system of England. The land came into the hands 
of small landholders, who, in the main, worked with their own hands. Each 
year increased this element of the State at the expense of the large proper- 
ties. The principle of primogeniture, which in Virginia outlasted the laws 
that supported it, never gained a place in Kentucky. The result was that 
each generation saw the lands more completely divided. There was also 
in this yeoman class, as well as among the more educated men of fortune, 
a growing discontent with the whole system of slave labor. Nor was this 
dislike to slavery based on economic considerations alone. There came to 
be a prejudice against all forms of commerce in slaves. This notion came 
to its height in the decade between 1830 and 1840, and is probably respon- 
sible for a part of the rapid relative decrease of slaves within those years. 
From the local histories the deliberate student will easily become convinced 
that if there had been no external pressure against slavery at this time there 
would still have been a progressive elimination of the slave element from 
the population by emancipation on the soil, by the sale of slaves to the 
planters of the Southern States, and by their colonization in foreign parts. 

In the decade from 1840 to 1850, the activity of the Abolition party in 
the North became very great. All along the Ohio river there were stations 
for the rescuing of slaves and conveying them to safe places beyond the 
border. The number of negroes who escaped in this way was small — it 
probably did not average more than one hundred a year — but the effect upon 
the state of mind of the people was very great. The truth is, the negroes 
in Kentucky were not generally suffering from any bonds that weighed 
heavily upon them. Slavery in Kentucky was of the domestic sort ; that 
is, it was to the most of their race not a grievous burden to bear. This is 



clay's " true AMERICAN SUPPRESSED. 



559 



veW shown by the fact that thousands of them quietly remained with their 
nasters in the counties along the Ohio river, when in any night they might 
lave escaped across the border. Still, this underground railway system, 
.Ithough it did not free many slaves, profoundly irritated the minds of their 
>wners, and even of the class that did not own slaves. Accompanied as 
iras this work of rescuing slaves 
)y a violent abuse of slavehold- 
ng, it destroyed, in good part, 
he desire to be rid of the insti- 
ution which had grown on the 
oil, and gave place to a natural, 
hough unreasonable, determi- 
lation to cling to the system 
gainst all foreign interference. 
1 Among the leading inci- 
lents of many that served to 
nflame the public passion on 
lie slavery issue, in June, 1845, 
^assius M. Clay established and 
lublished at Lexington an anti- 
lavery paper, entitled the True 
ifnerican, which he edited with 
laring boldness, reckless of per- 
onal consequences, that is char- 

cteristic of the life of one of the most remarkable men Kentucky ever 
iroduced. It was meant and understood to be an open war upon an 
istitution which had the sanction and support of the dominant element, 
nd which had entwined itself in vital relationship with almost every 
reat interest in the Commonwealth. On the i8th of August ensuing, 
"committee of sixty" prominent citizens were, by a large public assem- 
ily of men at Lexington, who had four days previously requested a 
liscontinuance of its publication as dangerous to the peace of the commu- 
lity and to the safety of their homes and families, and which request was 
lefiantly refused, authorized to take possession of the obnoxious press, type 
nd printing apparatus, pack them up, and send them forthwith to Cincin- 
lati, which was done, and the freight charges and expenses paid thereon, 
ts publication was continued at Cincinnati for a year or two. The com- 
nittee of sixty were tried on a charge of riot, and a verdict of " not guilty" 
endered. 




CASSIUS MARCELLUS CLAY. 



I Collins, Vol. I., p. 330. 



S6o 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

(1846-60.) 



Kentuckians and Texan independence. 

War with Mexico. 

General Zachary Taylor commands. 

March to the Rio Grande. 

Battles of Palo Alto, of Resaca, of Mon- 
terey. 

Louisville Legion. 

Second Kentucky infantry. 

McKee, Henry Clay, Jr., and Fry 

First Kentucky cavalry. 

Humphrey Marshall, John P. Gaines. 

Captain John S. Williams' company. 

Generals Butler and Marshall. 

Withdrawals from Taylor's army to re- 
enforce Scott. 

Taylor's critical position. 

Battle and victory at Buena Vista. 

Report. 

McKee, Clay, and others killed. 

Marshall's cavalry. 

Captain Williams at Cerro Gordo. 

March to and capture of Mexico city. 

Peace treaty. 

New Mexico, Arizona, California, Ne- 
vada, Utah, and Colorado purchased. 

General Taylor's military success makes 
him president of United States in 1848. 

His life. 

Crittenden governor. 

New Constitution voted. 

State finances. 

Convention meets. 

Notable changes made. 

First election of judges. 

*' Lrepressible conflict." 

Powell defeats Dixon and Clay for gov- 
ernor. 



Pierce elected President in 1852. 

Rise of the Native American or " Know 
Nothing" party. 

Morehead, Know Nothing, elected gov- 
ernor. 

Mobs in Louisville and other cities. 

" Bloody Monday." 

Overthrow of the Know Nothing party. 

Clay's Missouri compromise. 

His last effort for union and peace. 

"Omnibus Bill." 

His life and works. 

His nullification compromise. 

Jackson, Calhoun, and Letcher on the 
same. 

Measures advocated by him. 

Resigns his senatorship. 

Called again to Congress, he dies in his 
last years and labors for his country. 

Senators David Merriwether and Archi- 
bald Dixon elected. 

Elections in 1856. 

Buchanan president. 

Magoffin elected governor in 1859. 

Joshua F. Bell. 

Financial depression in 1857. 

The banks. 

Events preceding the civil war. 

Ancestry and origin of Kentucky popu- 
lation. 

Fecundity. 

Large emigration to new States. 

Effects from whisky. 

Tobacco and slavery. 

Industries. 

Self-reliance. 

Advantages of commerce. 



On the 2d of March, 1836, the representatives of the people of Texas 
assembled in convention and declared their State independent of Mexican 



I Frost's History of the Mexican War. 



SANTA anna's TREATY DENOUNCED. 561 

rule. The invading army was already marching in three divisions through 
the country to suppress this rebellion, the second, under General Santa 
Anna, being the center. General Houston, after falling back before one 
party of the foe, suddenly made a forced march to encounter Santa Anna. 
On the 20th of April, he bivouacked on the San Jacinto, and while his 
hungry and wearied Texans were preparing for their supper, the advance of 
Santa Anna's party came up. A skirmish resulted rather favorably to the 
Mexicans. The next day, tlie Mexican army, fifteen hundred strong, was 
confronted by seven hundred and sixty Texans. With the bloody butcheries 
of the Fannin massacre, the Alamo, and other scenes of Mexican atrocities 
fresh in mind, the Texans charged, with one desperate resolve, the ranks of 
the enemy. It was a rout and a slaughter rather than a pitched battle. Six 
hundred and thirty Mexicans were killed, two hundred and eighty wounded, 
and seven hundred taken prisoners, an army annihilated. General Santa 
Anna, then president of Mexico, was among the prisoners, and, in trepida- 
tion, offered to end the war by making a treaty on the 14th of May, binding 
himself solemnly to acknowledge, sanction, and ratify the independence of 
Texas. 

The authorities of Mexico denounced the treaty, and declared that the 
independence of Texas would not be consented to. The relations between 
the two were turbulent for some years, in which time Texas sought safety 
by asking admission as one of the United States. The Texans were mostly 
emigrants from this country, and a powerful mutual sympathy existed. The 
presidential contest of 1844 turned upon this question in the election of Polk 
over Clay as president, and on the verdict rendered by the people. Congress 
passed the requisite act of admission, in 1845. ^^^^^ ensued the next year 
between the United States and Mexico in consequence. General Zachary 
Taylor, of the regular army, and a native of Kentucky, was ordered to 
rendezvous the United States troops at Corpus Christi, on the Texas coast, 
ready for either alternative of defense or aggression, as the action of the 
Mexican Government might determine. 

'Here he remained until the nth of March, 1846, when he was in- 
structed to march his force to the east bank of the Rio Grande. At the Rio 
Colorado, he was encountered by the Mexican authorities and informed that 
an attempt to cross that river would be followed by actual hostilities. He 
crossed, nevertheless, and, leaving his army on its march, advanced with a 
body of dragoons to Point Isabel, near the mouth of the Rio Grande, where 
he established a camp and received supplies for his army. Having rejoined 
the main body of his army, General Taylor proceeded to take up a position 
on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, which he for- 
tified. This fort subsequently received the name of Fort Brown. 

The communication between Fort Brown and Point Isabel having been 
interrupted by the interposition of large forces of Mexicans between those 

I Collins, Vol. I., p. 384. 

36 



562 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

points, General Taylor, on the ist of May, leaving a small but effective 
force in possession of Fort Brown, marched the main body of his army to i. 
Point Isabel, determined to open the communication. On the 3d of May, 
he reached Point Isabel without interruption, and on the 7th of the same 
month started again for Fort Brown. He had with him a force of less than 
twenty-three hundred men, two eighteen-pounders, drawn by oxen, and 
Ringgold's and Duncan's batteries of light artillery. At a place called Palo 
Alto, about twelve miles from Point Isabel, he encountered, on the 8th of 
May, a force of six thousand Mexican regulars, provided with ten pieces of 
artillery and supported by a considerable body of rancheros. 

The Mexicans were drawn up in a line of battle extending a mile and a 
half across the plain, and outflanking the American army at either extreme. 
The lancers were posted in advance on the left, their arms glittering in the 
meridian sun, and presenting a most brilliant and martial appearance. The 
rest of the line was formed by the infantry and artillery. 

The right of the American line of battle was composed of the Third, 
Fourth, and Fifth regiments of regular infantry and Ringgold's artillery, 
under the command of Colonel Twiggs. The two eighteen-pounders, under 
Lieutenant Churchill, occupied the center, while the left of the line was 
formed by the Eighth infantry and Duncan's artillery, under Colonel Bel- 
knap. 

The action was commenced by the Mexican artillery, which opened its 
fire while the American army was yet at some distance. The engagement 
soon became general, and was fought almost entirely by the artillery. Ring- 
gold's battery opened with terrible effect on the Mexican left, scattering that 
brave array of cavalry as if it had been smitten by the sweep of a cyclone. 
They soon recovered, however, and, making a detour, attempted to fall on 
the American rear, but were met by the infantry, in squares, and repelled 
with immense slaughter. While Ringgold's battery, supported by the in- 
fantry, was sweeping everything before it on the right, Duncan, on the left, 
was hurling his fierce volleys into the reeling columns of the foe, who melted 
away at every discharge; and in the center, the two eighteen-pounders kept 
up a steady and destructive fire. Here the prairie took fire, and the flames, 
gathering force and fury as they flew, rolled their devouring billows over 
the field, and wraj^ped the two armies in an impervious canopy of smoke. 
This for a time stayed the contest. But Duncan and his men, dashing 
through the flames, which curled ten feet high, showed themselves on the 
Mexican flank, and, opening a furious fire, scattered the terror-stricken col- 
umns in every direction. This terminated the contest. The Mexicans re- 
treated to the chaparral and the Americans encamped on the field of battle. 
The Mexican loss in this affair was two hundred killed and four hundred 
wounded; that of the Americans was four killed and thirty-seven wounded. 
Of the killed, three were officers, among whom were Major Ringgold and 
Captain Page. 



MATAMORAS SURRENDERS TO GENERAL TAYLOR. 563 

That night the enemy retired four miles, and, having received a re-en- 
forcement of two thousand men, selected a strong position at Resaca de la 
Palma, with a ravine in front, guarded by a pond on one flank and a chap- 
arral on the other, and, having placed eight pieces of artillery in a situation 
to command the approaches, determined to await the advance of the Amer- 
icans. Contrary to the advice of his officers, General Taylor, notwithstand- 
ing the immense superiority of the force opposed to him, determined to 
continue his march to Fort Brown, and early next morning the army again 
advanced against the foe. 

As soon as the presence of the enemy was ascertained, the artillery of 
Lieutenant Ridgely was moved to the front, and opened its fire upon that 
of the Mexicans. The infantry was pressed forward on the right, and, after 
a desperate struggle, succeeded in penetrating through the chaparral and 
gaining the flank, while on the left our troops gained a decided advantage. 
But, in the meantime, the enemy's center kept up a deadly and destructive 
fire, which arrested the advance of the Americans, and rendered the fort- 
unes of the day for some time doubtful. Though Ridgely's artillery con- 
tinued to make terrible havoc in the ranks of the foe, the Mexicans still kept 
up a well-directed fire, which swept our lines and did fearful execution. At 
this crisis. General Taylor ordered Captain May to charge the battery with 
his dragoons. Without a moment's hesitation, the gallant May and his fear- 
less horsemen dashed forward through the tempest of fire and iron which 
the well-worked artillery of the Mexicans hurled in one unbroken torrent 
over the plain, and, though he lost many of his followers by the discharge 
with which his advance was met, he faltered not, but, with trumpets ringing 
merrily and gleaming sabers, swept on like a tornado, before which the firm 
lines of the enemy wavered and broke and fled. This advantage was fol- 
lowed up by a fierce onslaught from the infantry, at the point of the bayo- 
net. The enemy's center was broken and the fortune of the day decided. 
The victory was complete. General Taylor brought into action but seven- 
teen hundred wearied men, against a force of at least six thousand, well dis- 
ciplined, officered, and conditioned. The enemy had every advantage of 
position, and maintained it valiantly and well, and nothing but hard fighting 
wrested the victory from them. Our loss in the battle was one hundred and 
ten killed and wounded. That of the enemy was probably tenfold, though 
never precisely ascertained. On the i8th of May, General Taylor took 
possession of Matamoras without resistance. 

In response to the call of the Government, volunteers from the Western 
States came in numbers exceeding the demands of the campaign, and the 
commander-in-chief found himself suddenly embarrassed by volunteer re- 
enforcements, far beyond the provisions to maintain and move them for- 
ward. Kentucky was called on for a quota of twenty-four hundred men. 
Ten thousand of her citizens eagerly responded, ready for the war, and it 
became a struggle for the chance of the service. Governor Owsley, on the 



564 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

17th of May, had issued his proclamation to Kentuckians, "to form them- 
selves into volunteer companies," and report to him forthwith. In anticipa- 
tion, the Louisville Legion, commanded by Colonel Ormsby, had organized 
with nine full companies, and tendered its services to the governor on the 
i8th, the day following the proclamation. By the 26th, it had embarked for 
the seat of war. The Second regiment of infantry, W. R. McKee, colonel, 
Henry Clay, Jr., lieutenant-colonel, and Cary H. Fry, major, and the First 
regiment of cavalry, Humphrey Marshall, colonel, E. H. Field, lieutenant- 
colonel, and John P. Gaines, major, were next accepted, and soon en route 
for the Rio Grande. In addition to these, the company of John S. Will- 
iams, of Clark county, having been excluded from the quota by mistake, 
was specially accepted by the order of the War Department. Out of one 
hundred and five companies of volunteers, seventy-five were declined and 
disbanded. Of the general officers of the army appointed from Kentucky 
by the president, were Zachary Taylor, to be major-general in the regular 
army, William O. Butler, of Carroll county, to be major-general of volun- 
teers, and Thomas Marshall, of Lewis county, to be brigadier-general of 
volunteers. Of the companies forming the Second regiment, the captains 
were, respectively, William H. Maxcy, Franklin Chambers, Philip B. Thomp- 
son, Speed Smith Fry, George W. Cutter, William T. Willis, William Dough- 
erty, William M. Joyner, Wilkerson Turpin, and George W. Kavanaugh; 
of the First regiment of cavalry, W. J. Heady, A. Pennington, Cassius M. 
Clay, Thomas F. Marshall, J. C. Stone, J. Price, G. L. Postlethwaite, J. S. 
Lillard, John Shawhan, and B. C. Milam. 

The Louisville Legion was the first body of Kentucky volunteers to join 
the American army in its march of invasion from the mouth of the Rio 
Grande, and in time to participate in the next great battle fought. 

^At length, these obstacles being removed, the army was set in motion 
and advanced upon Monterey. This was a place strong by nature, amply 
fortified, and maintained by an army of seven thousand troops of the line 
and three thousand irregulars. To reduce this stronghold. General Taylor 
had a force comprising four hundred and twenty-five officers and sixty-two 
hundred and twenty men. Against the forty-two pieces of cannon of the 
Mexicans, he arrayed but one ten-inch mortar, two twenty-four-pound how- 
itzers, and four light field batteries of four guns each, the mortar being the 
only piece suitable to the operations of a siege. With these fearful odds 
against him, he invested the city. 

Having established his camp three miles from the defenses of the city, 
reconnoissances were made, and it was found possible to turn the enemy's 
position and gain the heights in his rear. General Worth was detached upon 
this duty, whicTi having been performed, he was to carry the enemy's works 
on that side of the town. The operations soon became twofold, the assailing 
party of Worth being independent of the command of Taylor, whose prin- 



I Collins, Vol. II., p. 385. 



1 



MONTEREY REDUCED. 565 

cipal efforts were to divert the attention of the enemy, while Worth pro- 
ceeded to the execution of his orders. 

The order was issued on the 19th of September, and the next day at two 
o'clock Worth commenced his advance, and succeeded in reaching a posi- 
tion above the bishop's palace. The next morning, the battle commenced 
in earnest. Pressing forward, Worth encountered the enemy in force, and 
drove them before him with slaughter. Gaining the Saltillo road, he cut off 
the communications, and, carrying two heights west of the Saltillo road, 
from one of them he was enabled, with his guns, to command the bishop's 
palace. In the meantime, a determined assault was made upon the town 
from below by the force under General Taylor. A series of terrific and 
bloody contests ensued. Our loss was very heavy, from the character of the 
enemy's defenses and the daring ardor of our troops. General Taylor's pur- 
pose of diverting attention from Worth was, however, attained. One of their 
advanced works was carried at the point of the bayonet, and a strong foot- 
ing secured in the town. This was on the third day after the commencement 
of active operations. On the fourth. Worth was victorious at every point. 
The bishop's palace was taken, while the troops under Taylor pressed upon 
the city, the lower part of which was evacuated that night. On the fifth 
day of the siege, the troops under Taylor advanced from square to square, 
every inch of ground desperately disputed, until they reached within a 
square of the Plaza ; while Worth pressed onward, on the opposite side of 
the city, carrying all before him. At length, matters being ripe for such a 
movement, preparations were made for a concerted storm of the enemy's 
position on the next day. The morning, however, brought an offer of 
capitulation, which resulted in the surrender of the city. Our loss in the 
affair was about five hundred killed and wounded; but the victory secured 
the possession of an immense territory and a vast amount of military stores. 

Making his headquarters at Monterey, General Taylor proceeded to oc- 
cupy Saltillo and Paras, while the Mexicans fell back upon San Luis Potosi. 
Santa Anna was recalled to Mexico and placed at the head of the Govern- 
ment and army. Before December, he had twenty thousand men under his 
command, well organized, and with this force he determined to crush Tay- 
lor at a blow and redeem the conquered provinces. While these prepara- 
Jons were going on, the Government of the United States, for the purpose 
Df an attack on \'era Cruz, withdrew from General Taylor the most effective 
portion of his forces, leaving him with an extended line of territory to de- 
fend, a formidable foe in front, and with only a small force, principally un- 
tied volunteers, to encounter the enemy. Rejecting the advice of the 
department to retire to Monterey and there defend himself, General Taylor 
ietermined to encounter Santa Anna at an advanced position, and selected 
Buena Vista for that purpose. This field was admirably chosen, and the 
hero, with his little band, there awaited the shock of his powerful adversary. 
Santa Anna brought into the field twenty thousand men, to encounter which 



566 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

General Taylor had a force of three hundred and thirty-four ofificers and 
forty-four hundred and twenty-five men. 

In the siege of Monterey, the Louisville Legion had joined General 
Taylor's army in time to participate. They were assigned to the duty of 
guarding a mortar battery, where, for twenty-four hours, they were exposed 
to the enemy's cannon, without the privilege or possibility of returning the 
fire, or of protective defense. During this time they held in check the 
Mexican cavalry, and, according to the report of the commanding general, 
"displayed obedience, patience, discipline, and calm courage," the highest 
qualities that could be possessed by an undisciplined soldiery, and under the 
severest ordeal of battle. In the action General William O. Butler was dan- 
gerously wounded, and Major Philip N. Barbour, of the regular army, and 
a native of Kentucky, was killed. 

In due time, the Second regiment of Kentucky infantry, and the First 
regiment of cavalry, joined the army of General Taylor, after the capture 
of Monterey, ready for the next great impending battle that gave most fame 
to the chief, and most severely tested the bravery of Kentucky volunteers. 
Not since the memorable battle of New Orleans, thirty-one years before, 
had an occasion arisen for Kentuckians to test the valor and endurance of 
untried volunteers, under the press of superior numbers, and through a long 
and desperate fight which often seemed hopeless to the stoutest hearts; and 
the crucial test of the desperately-contested issue of Angostura Pass served 
in later times to affect the military conduct of Kentuckians on other fields 
of battle. 

The war between the neighboring republics had now assumed a magni- 
tude that absorbed the national attention on both sides, and drew forth the 
entire national resources, at least of the defensive combatant. It became 
apparent that nothing less than the march of an invading army to the capital 
of Mexico would break the haughty pride of rulers and people, and enforce 
such terms of peace as looked now beyond the simple concession of first 
demands, to the indemnifying acquisition of territorial empire. The diffi- 
culties and disadvantages of marching an aggressive and conquering army 
inland from Monterey to Mexico were too formidable. At military head- 
quarters at Washington, it was determined to effect the landing of the main 
invading army at Vera Cruz, to capture and occupy this fortified stronghold, 
and from this point march upon the magnificent capital of the nation. GeM' 
eral Winfield Scott was placed at the head of this new army of invasion. ^ 

^ At the time when the victorious army of Taylor was being made invin- 
cibly strong, by the accretions of these volunteer re-enforcements, the 
demand was made upon him for the main body of regulars who had fought 
with him from Palo Alto to Monterey, to be transferred to Scott. He now 
found himself with insufficient troops to carry his campaign farther into the 
interior. It was imperative that he should hold Monterey and Saltillo, to^ 

I Shaler's American Commonwealths, p. 204. 



OFFICIAL REPORT OF GENERAL TAYLOR. 567 

protect his lines of communication ; and for this duty he was left with what 
the Government deemed a force sufficiently strong. As long as he main- 
tained the ground he had won, no Mexican army could invade Texas while 
Scott was marching on the City of Mexico. Underrating the forces and 
soldierly qualities of the enemy, the higher disposing authorities did not 
contemplate the possibility of a struggle with any formidable army sent 
against General Taylor; less, even, that an occasion would arise, to make it 
expedient for the latter to move forward with the depleted army. No sooner 
had the depletion of the veteran regiments of this army been observed by 
the vigilance of Santa Anna, than this greatest of the Mexican chieftains pre- 
pared suddenly to overwhelm this Federal army with four or five times their 
numbers, before Scott's columns could get into position to assail him. Leav- 
ing garrisons in Monterey and Saltillo, Taylor wisely anticipated the advance 
of the enemy, by moving the main body of his army southward to find a 
suitable place to meet the attack which threatened. Once penned within 
the forts he knew that a surrender was but a question of time. 

Buena Vista is a village ranche five miles south of Saltillo, on the road 
to San Luis Potosi. Here the baggage and supply trains were left. On 
either side of the San Luis road the mountains, abruptly broken into spurs, 
rose to a great height, enclosing the narrow valley. Three miles south of 
Buena Vista the gulleys approached so near the base of the eastern mount- 
ains, as to narrow the valley to the width of the road, forming the Pass of 
Angostura, the real point of battle. 

As much controversy and criticism have been indulged, on the actions 
of some of the prominent Kentucky officers and troops in the battle of 
Buena Vista, based mainly upon what we conceive to be partial, and not 
altogether unprejudiced, testimony, and as presenting a true and graphic 
description of the action by the most competent authority, we prefer here 
to introduce the official report of Commanding General Zachary Taylor, as 
part of the narrative of our history : 

" Headquarters, Army of Occupation, Agua Nueva, March 6, 1847 — 
Sir: I have the honor to submit a detailed report of the operations of the 
forces under my command which resulted in the engagement of Buena Vista, 
the repulse of the Mexican army, and their occupation of this position. 

" On the morning of the 2 2d, I was advised that the enemy was in sight, 
advancing. Upon reaching the ground it was found that his cavalry ad- 
vance was in our front, having marched from Encarnacion, as we have since 
learned, at eleven o'clock on the day previous, and driving in a mounted 
force left at Agua Nueva to cover the removal of public stores. Our troops 
were in position occupying a line of remarkable strength. The road at this 
point is a narrow defile, the valley on its right being rendered quite imprac- 
ticable for artillery by a system of deep and impassable gullies, while on the 
left a succession of rugged edges and precipitous ravines extends far back 
toward the mountain which bounds the valley. The features of the ground 



568 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

were such as nearly to paralyze the artillery and cavalry of the enemy, while 
his infantry could not derive all the advantage of its numerical superiority. 
In this position we prepared to receive him. Captain Washington's battery, 
Fourth artillery, was posted to command the road, while the First and Sec- 
ond Illinois regiments, under Colonels Hardin and Bissell, each eight com- 
panies, to the latter of which was attached Captain Conner's company of 
Texas volunteers, and the Second Kentucky, under Colonel McKee, occu- 
pied the crests of the ridges on the left and in rear. The Arkansas and 
Kentucky regiments of cavalry, commanded by Colonels Yell and H. Mar- 
shall, occupied the extreme left near the base of the mountain, while the 
Indiana brigade, under Brigadier-General Lane, composed of the Second 
and Third regiments, under Colonels Bowles and Lane, the Mississippi Rifle- 
men, under Colonel Davis, the squadrons of the First and Second dragoons 
under Captain Steen and Lieutenant-Colonel May, and the light batteries 
of Captains Sherman and Bragg, Third artillery, were held in reserve. At 
eleven o'clock I received from General Santa Anna a summons to surrender 
at discretion, which, with a copy of my reply, I have already transjnitted. 
The enemy still forbore his attack, evidently waiting for the arrival of his 
rear columns, which could be distinctly seen by our look-outs as they ap- 
proached the field. A demonstration made on his left caused me to detach 
the Second Kentucky regiment and a section of artillery, to our right, in 
which position they bivouacked for the night. In the meantime, the Mexi- 
can light troops had engaged ours on the extreme left, composed of parts 
of the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry dismounted, and a rifle battalion 
from the Indiana brigade under Major Gorman, the whole commanded by 
Colonel Marshall, and kept up a sharp fire, climbing the mountain side, and 
apparently endeavoring to gain our flank. Three pieces of Captain Wash- 
ington's battery had been detached to the left, and were supported by the 
Second Indiana regiment. An occasional shell was thrown by the enemy 
into this part of our line, but without effect. The skirmishing of the light 
troops was kept up with trifling loss on our part until dark, when I became 
convinced that no serious attack would be made before the morning, and 
returned with the Mississippi regiment and squadron of Second dragoons to 
Saltillo. The troops bivouacked without fires, and laid upon their arms. 
A body of cavalry, some fifteen hundred strong, had been visible all the 
day in rear of the town, having entered the valley through a narrow pass 
east of the city. This cavalry, commanded by General Minon, had evi- 
dently been thrown in our rear to break up and harass our retreat, and 
perhaps make some attempt against the town if practicable. The city was 
occupied by four excellent companies of Illinois volunteers under Major 
Warren of the First regiment. A field work, which commanded most of the 
approaches, was garrisoned by Captain Webster's company, First artillery, 
and armed with two twenty-four-pound howitzers, while the train and head- 
quarter camp was guarded by two companies of Mississippi riflemen under 



K 



BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE. 



569 



Captain Rogers, and a field piece commanded by Captain Shover, Third 
artillery. Having made these dispositions for the protection of the rear, I 
proceeded on the night of the 23d to Buena Vista, ordering forward all the 
other available troops. The action had commenced before my arrival on 
the field. 

" During the evening and night of the 2 2d the enemy had thrown a body 
of light troops on the mountain side, with the purpose of outflanking our 
left ; and it was here that the action of the 23d commenced at an early hour. 
Our riflemen under Colonel Marshall, who had been re-enforced by three 
companies under Major Trail, Second Illinois volunteers, maintained their 
ground handsomely against a greatly -superior force, holding themselves 
under cover, and using their weapons with terrible effect. About eight 
o'clock a strong demonstration was made against the center of our position, 
a heavy column moving along the road. This force was soon dispersed by 
a few rapid and well-directed shots from Captain Washington's battery. In 
the meantime, the enemy was concentrating a large force of infantry and 
cavalry under cover of the ridges, with the obvious intention of forcing our 
left, which was posted on an extensive plateau. The Second Indiana and 
Second Illinois regiments formed this part of our line, the former covering 
three pieces of light artillery, under the orders of Captain O'Brien, Briga- 
dier-General Lane being in the immediate command. In order to bring his 
men within effective range. General Lane ordered the artillery and Second 
Indiana regiment forward. The artillery advanced within musket range of 
a heavy body of Mexican infantry, and was served against it with great 
effect, but without being able to check its advance. l"he infantry ordered 
to its support had fallen back in disorder, being exposed, as well as the bat- 
tery, not only to a severe fire of small arms from the front, but also to a 
murderous cross-fire of grape and canister from a Mexican battery on the 
left. Captain O'Brien found it impossible to retain his position without sup- 
port, but was only able to withdraw two of his pieces, all the horses and 
cannoneers of the third piece being killed or disabled. The Second Indiana 
regiment, which had fallen back as stated, could not be rallied, and took no 
further part in the action, except a handful of men, who, under its gallant 
Colonel Bowles, joined the Mississippi regiment, and did good service; and 
those fugitives who, at a later period in the day, assisted in defending the 
train and depot at Buena Vista. This portion of our line having given way, 
and the enemy appearing in overwhelming force against our left flank, the 
light troops which had -rendered such good service on the mountain were 
compelled to withdraw, which they did, for the most part, in good order. 
Many, however, were not rallied until they reached the depot at Buena 
Vista, to the defense of which they afterward contributed. 

"Colonel Bissell's regiment, Second Illinois, which had been joined by 
a section of Captain Sherman's battery, had become completely outflanked, 
and was compelled to fall back, being entirely unsupported. The enemy 



57° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

was now pouring masses of infantry and cavalry along the base of the 
mountain on our left, and was gaining our rear in great force. At this mo- 
ment, I arrived upon the field. The Mississippi regiment had been directed 
to the left before reaching the position, and immediately came into action 
against the Mexican infantry which had turned our flank. The Second 
Kentucky regiment and a section of artillery, under Captain Bragg, had pre- 
viously been ordered from the right to re-enforce our left, and arrived at a 
most opportune moment. That regiment and a portion of the First Illinois, 
under Colonel Hardin, gallantly drove the enemy, and recovered a portion 
of the ground we had lost. The batteries of Captains Sherman and Bragg 
were in position on the plateau, and did much execution, not only in front, 
but particularly upon the masses which had gained our rear. Discovering 
that the enemy was heavily pressing upon the Mississippi regiment, the Third 
Indiana regiment, under Colonel Lane, was dispatched to strengthen that 
of our line, which formed a crochet perpendicular to the first line of battle. 
At the same time. Lieutenant Kilburn, with a piece of Captain Bragg's bat- 
tery, was directed to support the infantry there engaged. The action was 
for a long time warmly sustained at that point, the enemy making several 
efforts, both with artillery and cavalry, against our line, and being always 
repulsed with heavy loss. I had placed all the regular cavalry and Captain 
Pike's squadron of Arkansas horse under the orders of Brevet Lieutenant- 
Colonel May, with directions to hold in check the enemy's column, still 
advancing to the rear along the base of the mountain, which was done in 
conjunction with the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry, under Colonels Mar- 
shall and Yell. In the meantime, our left, which was still strongly threatened 
by a superior force, was further strengthened by the detachment of Captain 
Bragg's, and a portion of Captain Sherman's, batteries, to that quarter. The 
concentration of artillery fire upon the masses of the enemy along the base 
of the mountain, and the determined resistance offered by the two regiments 
opposed to them, had created confusion in their ranks, and some of the 
corps attempted to effect a retreat upon their main line of battle. The 
squadron of the First dragoons, under Lieutenant Rucker, was now ordered 
up the deep ravine which these retreating corps w^ere endeavoring to cross, 
in order to charge and disperse them. The squadron proceeded to the point 
indicated, but could not accomplish the object, being exposed to a heavy 
fire from a battery established to cover the retreat of those corps. While 
the squadron was detached on this service, a large body of the enemy was 
observed to concentrate on our extreme left, apparently with the view of 
making a descent upon the hacienda of Buena Vista, where our train and 
baggage were deposited. Lieutenant-Colonel May was ordered to the sup- 
port of that point, with two pieces of Captain Sherman's battery, under 
Lieutenant Reynolds. In the meantime, the scattered forces near the 
hacienda, composed in part of Majors Trail and Gorman's commands, had 
been to some extent organized, under the advice of Major Munroe, chief of 



SUCCESS WAVERING. 57I 

artillery, with the assistance of Major Morrison, volunteer staff, and were 
posted to defend the position. Before our cavalry had reached the hacienda, 
that of the enemy had made its attack, having been handsomely met by the 
Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry, under Colonels Marshall and Yell. The 
Mexican column immediately divided, one portion sweeping by the depot, 
where it received a destructive fire from the force which had collected there, 
and then gaining the mountain opposite, under a fire from Lieutenant Rey- 
nolds' section, the remaining portion regaining the base of the mountain on 
our left. In the charge at Buena Vista, Colonel Yell fell gallantly at the 
head of his regiment; we also lost Adjutant Vaughan, of the Kentucky 
cavalry, a young officer of much promise. Lieutenant- Colonel May, who 
had been rejoined by the squadron of the First dragoons, and by portions 
of the Arkansas and Indiana troops, under Lieutenant-Colonel Roane and 
Major Gorman, now approached the base of the mountain, holding in check 
the right flank of the enemy, upon whose masses, crowded in the narrow 
gorges and ravines, our artillery was doing fearful execution. 

"The position of that portion of the Mexican army which had gained our 
rear was now very critical, and it seemed doubtful whether it could regain 
the main body. At this moment, I received from General Santa Anna a 
message by a staff officer, desiring to know what I wanted. I immediately 
dispatched Brigadier-General Wool to the Mexican general-in-chief, and 
sent orders to cease their firing. Upon reaching the Mexican lines. General 
Wool could not cause the enemy to cease their fire, and accordingly re- 
turned without having an interview. The extreme right of the enemy con- 
tinued its retreat along the base of the mountain, and finally, in spite of all 
our efforts, effected a junction with the remainder of the army. 

"During the day, the cavalry of General Minon had ascended the ele- 
vated plain above Saltillo, and occupied the road from the city to the field of 
battle, where they intercepted several of our men. Approaching the town, 
they were fired upon by Captain Webster from the redoubt occupied by his 
company, and then moved off toward the eastern side of the valley, and 
obliquely toward Buena Vista. At this time. Captain Shover moved rapidly 
forward with his piece, supported by a miscellaneous command of mounted 
volunteers, and fired several shots at the cavalry with great effect. They 
Avere driven into the ravines which lead to the lower valley, closely pursued 
by Captain Shover, who was further supported by a piece of Captain Web- 
ster's battery, under Lieutenant Donaldson, which had advanced from the 
redoubt, supported by Captain Wheeler's company, Illinois volunteers. The 
enemy made one or two efforts to charge the artillery, but was finally driven 
back in a confused mass, and did not again appear upon the plain. 

"'In the meantime, the firing had partially ceased upon the principal 
field. The enemy seemed to confine his efforts to the protection of his artil- 
lery, and I had left the plateau for a moment, when I was recalled thither 
by a very heavy musketry fire. On regaining that position, I discovered 



572 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

that our infantry, Illinois and Second Kentucky, had engaged a greatly- 
superior force of the enemy, evidently his reserves, and that they had been 
overwhelmed by numbers. The moment was most critical. Captain O'Brien, 
with two pieces, had sustained this heavy charge to the last, and was finally 
obliged to leave his guns on the field, his infantry support being entirely 
routed. Captain Bragg, who had just arrived from the left, was ordered at 
once into battery. Without any infantry to support him, and at the im- 
minent risk of losing his guns, this officer came rapidly into action, the 
Mexican line being but a few yards from the muzzle of his pieces. The first 
discharge of canister caused the enemy to hesitate, the second and third 
drove him back in disorder, and saved the day. The Second Kentucky 
regiment, which had advanced beyond supporting distance in this affair, was 
driven back and closely pressed by the enemy's cavalry. Taking a ravine 
which led in the direction of Captain Washington's battery, their pursuers 
became exposed to his fire, which soon checked and drove them back with 
loss. In the meantime, the rest of our artillery had taken position on the 
plateau, covered by the Mississippi and Third Indiana regiments, the former 
of which had reached the ground in time to pour a fire into the right flank 
of the enemy, and thus contribute to his repulse. In this last conflict, we 
had the misfortune to sustain a very heavy loss. Colonel Hardin, First Illi- 
nois, and Colonel McKee and Lieutenant-Colonel Clay, Second Kentucky 
regiments, fell at this time while gallantly heading their commands. 

"No further attempt was made by the enemy to force our position, and 
the approach of night gave an opportunity to pay proper attention to the 
wounded, and also to refresh the soldiers who had been exhausted by inces- 
sant watchfulness and combat. Though the night was severely cold, the 
troops were compelled for the most to bivouac without fires, expecting that 
morning would renew the conflict. During the night the wounded were 
removed to Saltillo, and every preparation made to receive the enemy, 
should he again attack our position. Seven fresh companies were drawn 
from the town, and Brigadier-General Marshall, who had made a forced 
march from the Rinconada, with a re-enforcement of Kentucky cavalry and 
four heavy guns, under Captain Prentiss, First artillery, was near at hand, 
when it was discovered that the enemy had abandoned his position during 
the night. Our scouts soon ascertained that he had fallen back on Agua 
Nueva. The great disparity of numbers and the exhaustion of our troops 
rendered it inexpedient and hazardous to attempt pursuit. A staff officer was 
dispatched to General Santa Anna, to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, 
which was satisfactorily completed on the following day. Our own dead 
were collected and buried, and the Mexican wounded, of which a large 
number had been left upon the field, were removed to Saltillo, and rendered 
as comfortable as circumstances would permit. 

"On the evening of the 26th, a close reconnoissance was made of the 
enemy's position, which was found to be occupied only by a small body of 



I 



THE LOSS ON BOTH SIDES. 573 

cavalry, the infantry and artillery having retreated in the direction of San 
Luis Potosi. On the 27th, our troops resumed their former camp at Agua 
Nueva, the enemy's rear guard evacuating the place as we approached, 
leaving a considerable number of wounded. It was my purpose to beat up 
his quarters at Encarnacion early the next morning, but upon examination 
the weak condition of the cavalry horses rendered it unadvisable to attempt 
so long a march without water. A command was finally dispatched to En- 
carnacion, on the ist of March, under Colonel Belknap. Some two hun- 
dred wounded and about sixty Mexican soldiers were found there, the army 
having passed on in the direction of Matahuala, with greatly-reduced num- 
bers, and suffering much from hunger. The dead and dying were strewn 
upon the road and crowded the buildings of the hacienda. 

"The American force engaged in the action of Buena Vista is shown, 
by the accompanying field report, to have been three hundred and thirty- 
four officers and forty-four hundred and twenty-five men, exclusive of the 
small command left in and near Saltillo. Of this number, two squadrons 
of cavalry and three batteries of light artillery, making not more than four 
hundred and fifty-three men, composed the only force of regular troops. 
The strength of the Mexican army is stated by General Santa Anna, in his 
summons, to be twenty thousand, and that estimate is confirmed by all the 
information since obtained. Our loss is two hundred and sixty-seven killed, 
four hundred and fifty-six wounded, and twenty-three missing. Of the nu- 
merous wounded, many did not require removal to the hospital, and it is 
hoped that a comparatively small number will be permanently disabled. 
The Mexican loss in killed and wounded may be fairly estimated at fifteen 
hundred, and will probably reach two thousand. At least five hundred of 
their killed were left upon the field of battle. We have no means of ascer- 
taining the number of deserters and dispersed men from their ranks, but it 
is known to be very great. 

"Our loss has been especially severe in officers, twenty-eight having 
been killed upon the field. We have to lament the death of Captain George 
Lincoln, assistant adjutant-general, serving on the staff" of General Wool — 
a young officer of high bearing and approved gallantry, who fell early in 
the action. No loss falls more heavily upon the army in the field than that 
of Colonels Hardin and McKee and Lieutenant-Colonel Clay. Possessing 
in a remarkable degree the confidence of their commands, and the last two 
having enjoyed the advantage of a military education, I had looked particu- 
larly to them for support in case we met the enemy. I need not say that 
their zeal in engaging the enemy, and the cool and steadfast courage with 
which they maintained their positions during the day, fully realized my 
hopes, and caused me to feel yet more sensibly their untimely loss. 

"The Mississippi riflemen, under Colonel Davis, were highly conspicu- 
ous for their gallantry and steadiness, and sustained throughout the engage- 
ment the reputation of veteran troops. Brought into action against an 



574 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

immensely superior force, they maintained themselves for a long time un- 
supported, and with a heavy loss, and held an important part of the field 
until re-enforced. Colonel Davis, though severely wounded, remained in the 
saddle till the close of the action. His distinguished coolness and gallantry 
at the head of his regiment on this day entitle him to the particular notice 
of the Government. The Third Indiana regiment, under Colonel Lane, 
and a fragment of the Second, under Colonel Bowles, were associated with 
the Mississippi regiment during the greater portion of the day, and acquitted 
themselves creditably in repulsing the attempts of the enemy to break that 
portion of our line. The Kentucky cavalry, under Colonel Marshall, ren- 
dered good service dismounted, acting as light troops on our left, and 
afterward, with a portion of the Arkansas regiment, in meeting and dispers- 
ing the column of cavalry at Buena Vista. The First and Second Illinois, 
and the Second Kentucky regiments, served immediately under my eye, 
and I bear a willing testimony to their excellent conduct throughout the 
day. The spirit with which the first Illinois and Second Kentucky engaged 
the enemy in the morning restored confidence to that part of the field, while 
the list of casualties will show how much these three regiments suffered in 
sustaining the heavy charge of the enemy in the afternoon. Captain Con- 
nor's company of Texas volunteers, attached to the Second Illinois regiment, 
fought bravely, its captain being wounded and two subalterns killed. Colonel 
Bissell, the only surviving colonel of these regiments, merits notice for his 
coolness and bravery on this occasion. After the fall of the field officers 
of the First Illinois and Second Kentucky regiments, the command of the 
former devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel Weatherford ; that of the latter 
upon Major Fry. 

" I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"Z. Taylor, 
'■^ Major- General United States Army Comma7iding. 
"The Adjutant-General of the Army, Washington, D. C." 
The only other distinctive Kentucky troops that were engaged in any 
severe action during the war was the company of Captain John S. Williams, 
of which mention was formerly made. This company had joined Scott's 
army of invasion at Vera Cruz. The stronghold of the enemy was at Cerro 
Gordo, some miles out on the road to the City of Mexico. This fortified 
position was defended by Santa Anna, who had returned on his retreat 
from Buena Vista to Mexico with his recruited army. The company of 
Captain Williams had joined the volunteer regiment of Colonel Haskell, 
of Tennessee. When the brigade of General Pillow assaulted the position 
of the enemy on the plateau, the advance post of honor was given to Has- 
kell's regiment. In the face of a murderous fire, which twice drove back 
the assailants, they again rallied and gallantly stormed the enemy's works, 
and planted the American standard upon the same. Conspicuous among 
the bravest. Captain Williams led his company in the front, and shared the 



I 



KKNTUCKY TROOPS DISCIPLINED. 575 

honors of the victory. For his bravery and daring on the occasion, he 
won the soubriquet of " Cerro Gordo Williams," which yet distinguishes him 
among his ardent friends in Kentucky. 

1 These battles of the war proved that the American militia, properly 
commanded, could sustain a long series of attacks, or stand steadily under 
the heaviest fire, from overwhelming numbers, without becoming demoral- 
ized by the many well-delivered blows which might strike their lines. 
Mexico became a training ground in the art and skill of military tactics of 
many men, both in the regular and volunteer service, who afterward became 
distinguished by their important parts in the civil war. Many of these sol- 
diers reappear in the subsequent civil and military history of the State, both 
on the Federal and Confederate sides. Here they received that training 
that gave them successful leadership. At the beginning of the Mexican 
war, there was no State in the Union where there had been for a genera- 
tion a greater neglect of the military art, on the part of her people. There 
remained from the military life of the old days but two elements of value 
to the soldier — an instinctive as well as a trained ability in the use of fire- 
arms, and a strong combative spirit. These proved of great efiiciency. 
These troops were to be tried against a people who possessed a large degree 
of soldierly qualities. The Mexicans were hardy, brave, and patient, and 
well trained in the simpler art of war, their frequent internal struggles 
having given them recent and extensive experience in military affairs. The 
experience proved that the Kentucky troops showed little of that intractable 
and insubordinate spirit, or unwillingness to submit to command, that marked 
their ancestors in 1812. The long training in civic life had finally subju- 
gated the wilder impulses of insubordination that were the reproach of the 
pioneer soldier. There was no time to give to these volunteers even a good 
camp training, and their officers were incompetent to the task. They fought 
as raw militia. 

We can not, within the scope of Kentucky history, follow the invading 
campaign of General Scott from Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo through the 
sieges and capture of Contreras and Cherubusco, the storming of Molino 
del Rey and Chapultepec, the successful assaults upon San Cosme and 
Belen Gates, and the triumphant entrance of his victorious army into the 
proud City of Mexico, the venerable capital of the Montezumas. Nor can 
we farther follow the details of the military operations in New Mexico and 
California, and of other note, which so soon must become a conspicuous 
figure in a treaty of peace, negotiated at Guadaloupe Hidalgo, on February 
2, 1848. This treaty stipulated that the Rio Grande river, or Rio Bravo del 
Norte, as the Mexicans styled it, from its mouth to El Paso, and from thence 
a line due west to the Pacific ocean, varying but little, should in future be 
the boundary line between the two countries; and in consideration of this 
cession of a vast territorial empire, the United States should pay to Mexico 

I Shaler's American Commonwealths, p. 201. 



576 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



the sum of fifteen million dollars. Thus, besides the area of Texas, was 
added to the possession of this country all that territory now embracing New- 
Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, increasing by 
twenty-five per cent, the entire area of the United States and Territories. 

Before the war ended, another requisition was made by the Government 
on Kentucky for two regiments more of troops. The call was promptly 
answered, and the quota of volunteer troops tendered the authorities in two 
organized regiments, as follows: The Third regiment of infantry, Colonel 
Manlius V. Thomson, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas L. Crittenden, and 
Major John C. Breckinridge, in command; and the Fourth, commanded by 
Colonel John S. Williams, Lieutenant-Colonel William Preston, and Major 
William T. Ward. Peace assured, these regiments disbanded without reach- 
ing the seat of war. 

The results of the war invested General Taylor with that glamour of fame 
in the popular mind which distinguished military success, attended with 

1 incidents of the heroic, has in all ages 
commanded, as the tribute of admiration 
land adulation from the impulsive instinct 
[of the great masses. The idea was ad- 
vanced and dwelt upon by his sympa- 
thizing friends, that the Government had 
j committed gross injustice to him, and to 
the volunteer favorites of the people, in 
I decimating his army by the withdrawal of 
I the regular troops, and in organizing and 
equipping a main army under a new gen- 
eral, for the invasion of Mexico; that this 
injustice barely escaped a catastrophe to 
the nation, by the heroic gallantry and 
splendid victory of Buena Vista; and that 
GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR. this shifting of men and scenes upon the 

theater of war, was intended to check the growing popularity of General 
Taylor as an invincible whig candidate for the presidency. The idea once 
suggested became a deep-rooted prejudice in the public mind, until the tide 
of feeling rose to a great wave of enthusiasm, foreshadowing the inevitable 
result. The Whig National Convention which met at Philadelphia, on June 
8, 1848, nominated Zachary Taylor, then of Louisiana, but forty years a 
Kentuckian, for president, and Millard Fillmore, of New York, for vice- 
president. On May 26th, the Democratic National Con\ention had nominated 
Lewis Cass, of Michigan, and William O. Butler, of Kentucky, the opposing 
ticket. The whig ticket was elected. Kentucky gave to it 67,486 votes; to 
the democratic, 49,865. General Taylor served as president until July 9, 
1850, on which day he died, and was succeeded by Vice-President Fill- 
more. 




THE WHIG TICKET ELECTED. 577 

The father of General Zachary Taylor, one of the most eminent and 
worthy of the sons of Kentucky, was Colonel Richard Taylor, of Virginia, 
a gallant officer in the Continental army throughout the Revolutionary war. 
In 1785, he removed with his family to Kentucky, and settled in Jefferson 
county, and for years distinguished himself by his services in defense of the 
border against the Indians. Zachary Taylor was nine months old at the 
date of this removal. He grew to manhood amid the din of Indian warfare, 
and received such education as the country afforded. In 1808, he was 
appointed first lieutenant in the regular army, and soon after joined the 
command of General Wilkinson, at New Orleans. In the war with England, 
in 181 2-1 5, he served with distinguished gallantry and success, in the cam- 
paigns of General Harrison in the North-west. His most noted achievement 
here was the successful defense of Fort Harrison against the formidable 
investment and assaults of a greatly superior body of Indians, aided by their 
allies from Canada. He bore the rank of major at the close of the war. 
He was promoted to the rank of colonel in 1832, and rendered most effect- 
ive service in the Black Hawk war, which broke out at that date. After- 
ward, in the war against the Seminole tribes of Florida, which became so 
noted for its long continuance, and the great trouble and expense the Indians 
gave the Government, from the everglade swamps of that country, the lead- 
ing military operations were under the command of General Taylor. His 
subsequent achievements in the Mexican war, and his elevation to the presi- 
dency of the United States, left nothing more for human ambition and 
fame to be sought or desired. 

In the same year, 1848, John J. Crittenden and John L. Helm were 
elected governor and lieutenant-governor of Kentucky, upon the whig ticket, 
over Lazarus W. Powell and John P. Martin, democrats, by an average ma- 
jority of about eight thousand. 

In August, 1848, the poll for calling a convention to change the Consti- 
tution of Kentucky, resulted in 101,828 votes for, and 39,792 against; and 
on January 13, 1849, the Legislature passed an act "To call a convention, 
at Frankfort, October i, 1849, to change the Constitution of the State." 
On the opening of the campaign for the choice of delegates to this conven- 
tion, the sentiment for the gradual emancipation of the slaves was called 
into intense activity. Meetings of the friends took place in a number of 
counties; and on April 25th, a State convention of the same was held at 
Frankfort. It was there resolved that candidates be brought out, in favor : 
First, of the absolute prohibition of the importation of any more slaves in 
Kentucky; and, second, of the complete power to enforce and effect, under 
the new constitution, whenever the people desire it, a system of gradual 
prospective emancipation of slaves. The excitement and bitterness of party 
feeling was intense. Cassius M. Clay was the leading spirit of the campaign 
among the friends of emancipation. The result showed practically almost 
a solid delegation for the pro-slavery party in the convention, 

37 



578 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

1 Two features of the Constitution of 1799 seemed to render it unsatis- 
factory to the people. The appointment of the judiciary by the governor 
became unpopular. By the existing constitution, all judges, clerks of courts, 
justices of the peace, and attorneys for the Commonwealth, were appointed 
by the governor or by the courts. It was complained that this separated the 
people too much from a control of that part of the government with which 
they had the most to do; that it gave the governor, in times of political 
excitement, too much power to exercise his partialism in the appointment of 
these officers. Though the same policy has been pursued in other States, 
and for like reasons, it is questioned by many thoughtful and good men, 
whether this change was for the better, on the whole. Yet, once adopted 
in the constitution of the State, it is not likely that there will ever be a re- 
turn to the old appointing method. 

Another evil of moment was the power of the Legislature to raise money 
on the credit of the State. According to the exhibit made in the message 
of Governor Crittenden, of this year, the debt of the State was $4,497,652, 
mainly incurred in internal improvements projected and made in the specu- 
lative years of the preceding decade. There was a desire to arrest this 
indiscriminate power to incur debts for future i)ayment, the burdens of which 
the people had been made to feel. 

On the 1st of October, the convention met at Frankfort, and proceeded 
to organize, by the election of a president. The members stood, respect- 
ively, for James Guthrie, democrat, fifty; Archibald Dixon, forty-three 
votes. 

2 The changes were made in the two objectionable features mentioned. 
Besides, the provisions for changing the new constitution, before very diffi- 
cult, were now made so complicated that, though repeated efforts have been 
made, it has been found so far practically impossible to assemble a conven- 
tion for the purpose. The apprehensions of the possible and dangerous 
agitations on the questions of the emancipation of the slaves, had much to 
do with the erection of the barriers to a change. By shaping the law so 
that the people should be required to continue favorable to a change for a 
number of years, and finally arrive at a conclusion tlirough a series of legis- 
lative acts, and popular elections, in which a majority of both bodies should 
approve, they secured the instrument from the jeopardy of impulsive public 
sentiment or hasty action. The result is that the constitution of Kentucky, 
in its relations to a revolutionized condition of society, of property interests, 
and of civil relations, is one of the most remarkable anomalies of American 
politics. Constructed in an era of intense pro-slavery sentiment, and mainly 
with features of protection and perpetuation of the institution, now, after 
the abolishment of slavery and the restoration of peaceful government for 
nearly a quarter of a century, it stands untouched and unmarred, a grim 

1 Shaler's American Commonwealths, p. 214. 

2 Shaler's American Commonwealths, p. 216. 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 579 

monument of an eventful past, with its living and dead provisions inter- 
twined among the masonry of its articles and sections. When it may be 
changed, no augury of statesmanship is able to forecast. The people seem 
indifferent to change, and move on in the pursuits and followings of life 
with contentment, as apparent as in the era suited to the instrument. 

On May 12, 185 1, the first election of officers under the new constitu- 
tion was held. The returns showed that James Simpson, of the First district; 
Thomas A. Marshall, of the Second; B. Mills Crenshaw, of the Third; and 
Elijah Hise, of the Fourth, were the successful candidates for the appellate 
bench, and Philip Swigert clerk of that court. Twelve circuit judges, twelve 
Commonwealth attorneys, and in each county, a county judge, clerk, attor- 
ney, sheriff, jailor, assessor, coroner, surveyor, justices of the peace, and 
constables were, for the first time in Kentucky history, elected by the 
people. 

The severe measures for the repression of the agitation of anti-slavery 
sentiment proved unavailing to altogether check the ardency and determina- 
tion of the friends of emancipation. It is true that many lips were sealed 
of those of favoring sentiment, who felt that it was but useless indiscretion 
to attempt to breast the tide of overwhelming popular feeling for the insti- 
tution; but enough were bold and outspoken in their advocacy to justify the 
title given to the issue — '■'■The Irrepressible Conflict.'''' In the first political 
State campaign under the new constitution, in 185 1, the Emancipation 
party placed a ticket before the people, with Cassius M. Clay for governor 
and George N. Blakey for lieutenant-governor. The result of the election 
^vas: For governor, Lazarus W. Powell, democrat, 54,613; for Archibald 
Dixon, whig, 53,763; for Cassius M. Clay, emancipationist, 3,621; for 
lieutenant,- governor, Robert N. Wickliffe, 47,454; John B. Thompson, 
53>599; George D. Blakey, 1,670. Richard C. Wintersmith was elected 
treasurer; E. A. Macurdy, register of the land office; Thomas S. Page, 
auditor; James Harlan, attorney-general; Robert J. Breckinridge, superin- 
tendent of public instruction; and David B. Haggard, president of the 
board of internal improvements ; all Whigs elected, except the governor. 
Thus, it was pretty evident that the vote for Clay had drawn strength 
enough from Dixon to defeat a Whig candidate for governor; yet Clay's 
vote by no means represented the numbers of the anti-slavery men of the 
State. The belief that the Whig party was in favor of some system of grad- 
ual emancipation led many of them to go over to the Democratic party, 
"which had become the pronounced guardian and defender of the institution. 
From this time on, the decadence of the former party in Kentucky was 
marked, with perhaps the exception in the presidential vote in 1852, in 
which year Winfield Scott, whig, received a majority of thirty-two hundred 
and sixty-two over Franklin Pierce, democrat. 

The rise, culmination, and rapid disintegration of the Native American 
party, or secret Know Nothing organization, over the entire country, includ- 



580 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ing Kentucky, about the period of 1854-6, yet more affected the strength 
and prestige of the old Whig party. It was but a phenomenal outbreak of 
anti-Catholic and foreign feeling, which swept over the country like a wave 
of fire, and which burned as intensely in Kentucky as in any other State. 
For a time it absorbed all political interest, and even left the question of 
emancipation ignored in national and State politics. The great Know Noth- 
ing party was made up of local secret societies organized in every com- 
munity, much after the fashion of Masonry and other such. All persons 
entering a lodge and becoming members were sworn, after the most rigid 
and solemn forms of the ritual, that they would never reveal the mysteries 
of the lodge, and that they would not vote for a Roman Catholic, or a man 
foreign born, for any political office ; that they would vote for the party and 
men pledged to abridge or deny to foreigners the privileges of full citizen- 
ship and suffrage, and to do all in their power to eradicate foreign influence, 
and with it Roman Catholic influence, from the politics of our country. 

So contrary were such sentiments and such a party, apparently, to the 
genius of American liberty, that even many Whigs declined to follow the 
great mass of their brethren who were inclined to such a political organiza- 
tion. Looking back upon this most remarkable phenomenon of sentimental 
politics, many persons characterize it as little else than a vagary, born of 
prejudice and rapidly consumed in the heat of its own passions; that it 
questioned the rights of a large and potent element of our citizenship, and 
could not but provoke the bitterest antagonism upon the part of those who 
were to be divested, and enlist the sympathies of the advocates of full liberty 
to all citizens. The issues of the American party absorbed the Whig, and 
were met in a life and death struggle by the Democratic, party. For a year, 
the phenomenal party was triumphant in Kentucky. 

For governor, in August, 1855, Charles S. Morehead, American, received 
69,816 votes, against 65,413 for Beverly L. Clarke, democrat; and for 
lieutenant-governor, James G. Hardy, American, defeated Beriah Magoffin, 
democrat. The entire American, or Know Nothing, State ticket was elected. 
The Legislature was of like complexion. So intensely bitter were the feel- 
ings of the contending parties, that a terrible riot broke out in Louisville on 
the day of the election, which, for the violence of the mob-spirit and the 
sanguinary results, caused that day to be known in our history as " Bloody 
Monday." There were fearful scenes of violence, of bloodshed, and of 
incendiarism, principally in the First and Eighth wards. At night, some 
sixteen houses on Main street, in the vicinity of Eleventh, were fired and 
burned. Shots were exchanged between the mob outside, and the occu- 
pants within, with destructive effect. Other buildings were fired, and 
similar scenes enacted in other parts of the city. Twenty-two persons were 
killed and many wounded, during the twenty-four hours reign of terror, 
about three-fourths Irish, and one-fourth Americans, the police of the city 
being inadequate to suppress or control the fury and riot of the factions. 



DEATH OF HENRY CLAY. 581 

It required but another twelve-month to mature the reaction which must 
surely come against a movement which seemed so little in accordance with 
all previous republican experience and institutions. In 1856, it met its 
"Waterloo in Virginia, where Henry A. Wise, as the Democratic candidate 
for governor, signally defeated his American opponent by ten thousand 
majority. This seemed to be recognized as a test of the stability of the 
great Know Nothing party, and on the result the imposing fabric went to 
pieces. From this date, the Whig party lost precedence in Kentucky, and 
was wrecked amid the stormy events of the next decade. 

On the 29th of June, 1852, while a member of the Senate of the United 
States, Henry Clay sank under the ravages of disease and the burden of 
years, and died in the city of Washington. The intelligence spread a pall 
of gloom over the entire country, with its deepest shadows upon the hearts of 
the people of Kentucky. His mortal remains were brought in state to his 
home at Ashland, near Lexington, and deposited in the cemetery there, in 
the midst of a concourse of thirty thousand people assembled. During the 
youth and maturity of his manhood, the imperious spirit and great qualities 
of leadership brought about unavoidable antagonisms, and made many ene- 
mies. Nature had so endowed him that he could brook neither rivalry nor 
opposition with resigned patience. He was constituted to lead the one, to 
conquer the other, as he did in the tournaments of every debate in Congress, 
before jury, or on the public rostrum. But he was approaching his four 
score years, when his public career terminated with his death. The work 
of his later years had been non-partisan and less personally aggressive. The 
motives to ambition and fame had subsided with approaching age, and the 
spirit of the patriot and peacemaker became the supreme aim of his later 
life. A nation of people venerated and admired the virtues of his character, 
"which now shone with more luster than ever before. 

With gloomy forebodings, Mr. Clay foresaw the perils into which his 
beloved country was drifting, upon the '"irrepressible conflict" of the slavery 
strife. The attitude of the North, and its encroachments on the South and 
her institutions, together with the fiery character of the peo]:)le of the latter, 
presaged only evil; and already the talk of a resort to arms, as a last remedy, 
Avas indulged but too freely. He had calmed the lowering storm raised by 
the INIissouri question, by the terms of compromise. Again, the hydra of 
the slavery issue appeared, in the disposal of the question of the admission 
as a State of California, and others of the provinces ceded by Mexico. Mr. 
Clay was returned to the Senate, in the hope that his wisdom and influence 
might effect a peaceful solution again. Shortly after taking his seat, he 
submitted a series of resolutions looking to this end, which are known in 
the history of Congressional legislation as the "Omnibus Bill." It proposed 
to admit California, without any restriction as to slavery; that Congressional 
legislation therein is inexpedient; to indemnify Texas for relinquishing her 
title to a part of New Mexico; that it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the 



582 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

District of Columbia, while it remains in Maryland; the rigid enforcement 
of the fugitive slave law, etc. This bill failed in the form presented ; but its 
measures were subsequently adopted seriatim, except one provision for the 
prohibition of the trade in slaves in the District of Columbia. Once more 
the country was tranquil for a time. 

1 Mr. Clay served in the lower house of Congress, with but brief inter- 
missions, from his retirement from the Senate, in 181 1, until 1821, at which 
time the neglect of his private interest, and the impairment of his fortune, 
imperatively demanded his entire personal attention. During this ten years, 
he presided over the House of Representatives. Among the most brilliant 
and effective displays of his powers of oratory and statesmanship were his 
measures and speeches in support of the war of 181 2-15, with England. 
Strange as it may now seem, there was a resisting party, by no means 
feeble and inert, made up mainly from New England and the seashore 
borders of other Northern States, who bitterly opposed the war, and were 
openly disposed to submit to all the indignities and outrages heaped on this 
country by Great Britain, rather than distract her efforts to marplot Napo- 
leon, the destined and commissioned iconoclast of Europe, in the zenith of 
his phenomenal career. Besides, these represented extensive maritime and 
mercantile interests which must be well-nigh obliterated by the necessities 
of military and naval belligerency. This party was potently represented in 
and out of Congress, and Mr. Clay became the central figure for its shafts 
of malice, as the leader and impersonation of the war party and policy. 
Among the brilliant efforts of his peerless oratory some of the best speci- 
mens may be found in his speeches at this time. His was the supreme and 
master spirit in that dark hour, which rallied all the boldness and chivalry 
of the nation, and inspired the patriotic ardor to avenge the honor of the 
nation, and to rebuke the intolerable insults of England. 

In 1 8 14, he resigned his seat in Congress, on his appointment, in con- 
nection with John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Albert Gallatin, and 
Jonathan Russell, as plenipotentiary, to meet a like commission on the part 
of England, to consider terms of treaty and peace between the two bellig- 
erent nations. The commissioners met at Ghent, and there negotiated such 
terms of adjustment as proved to become mutually acceptable to the govern- 
ments. The diplomatic ability of Mr. Clay during the sessions at Ghent 
won from his associates the highest encomiums of praise, and he returned 
to his people with his reputation enhanced from this new field of statecraft. 
It is believed that Mr. Clay's firmness and mastery of the occasion most 
probably saved the right of the navigation of the Mississippi river from being 
sacrificed for a very inconsiderable return. 

The great Kentuckian availed himself of the opportunity of visiting the 
capitals and noted centers of Europe, on the pressing invitations and assur- 
ances of friends newly made. At every point visited, he was heralded by 

I Collins, Vol. II., p. 209. 



SOUTH Carolina's threat. 583 

his world-wide fame, and from potentates and distinguished personages, as 
well as from the people of every nation visited, he received tributes of 
respect and admiration, such as no other living citizen of America could 
have commanded. From the background of the western republic, at no 
time in its history did the individuality of any one person stand out before 
the admiring world with such conspicuous prominence as did Henry Clay. 
His genius and his fame more than partisan, or sectional, or national, illus- 
trated the universal history of his generation. The thunders of his oratory 
in behalf of the recognition of the republics of South America, the inde- 
pendence of Greece, and for the cause of liberty elsewhere, reverberated 
throughout the royal and diplomatic halls of Europe, and among potentates 
and people, and echoed across the continents and oceans to cheer and in- 
spire the patriot friends of free government, from the slopes of the Andes, 
in the West, to the shores of the Hellespont, in the East. No man of the 
continents that bordered the broad Atlantic lived more in the hearts and 
memories of all peoples. 

It would leave even this brief record of the life and services of the great 
statesman imperfect and inadequate, not to make some mention of the part 
played by Mr. Clay and his Kentucky colleagues in that exciting episode of 
American history, known as the South Carolina nullification measures, and 
which seriously threatened a terrible civil war thirty years before the recent 
one, or a disintegration of the Union. We must group together around the 
point, and at the incidents, of the culmination, some of the leading charac- 
ters in the scenery of this dramatic event, so thrillingly exciting then, and 
so imperfectly understood now, behind the shadows of the civil war. 

On the 24th of November, 1832, South Carolina, in convention, declared 
unconstitutional, and to be null and void on and after the ist day of February 
next, certain acts of Congress laying duties and imposts on foreign imports 
within the limits of that State; and that if the Federal Government should 
attempt to use coercive measures in the exercise of such power, she would 
withdraw from the Union, and assume the attitude of an independent sov- 
ereignty. General Jackson, who had just been re-elected president over 
Mr. Clay, issued a warning proclamation in response to this turbulent pro- 
ceeding, admonitory of the consequences, and closing with the following 
touching appeal : 

^"Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admonish you, as 
the first magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of its 
laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children whom he 
saw rushing to certain ruin. 

"You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is 
no settled design to oppress you. You have, indeed, felt the unequal opera 
tion of laws, which may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally, passed , 
but that inequality must necessarily be removed. At the very moment when 

I •■'Old Fogy" correspondent Courier-Journal, Statesman's Manual, Jackson's administration. 



584 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

you were madly urged on to the unfortunate course you have begun, a change 
in the pubHc opinion has commenced. 

"I adjure you, as you value the peace of your country, the Uves of its 
best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from 
the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid 
its members to reassemble, and promulgate the decided expressions of 
your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, pros- 
perity, and honor. Tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils 
are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare that 
you will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner of your country 
shall float over you; that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dis- 
honored and scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack upon 
the Constitution of your country. Its destroyer you can not be. You may 
disturb the peace, you may interrupt the course of its prosperity, you may 
cloud its reputation for stability, but its tranquillity will be restored, its pros- 
perity will return, and the stain upon its national character will be trans- 
ferred, and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the 
disorder." 

The authorities of South Carolina, in full view of the fact that the friends 
of the administration in Congress were maturing bills for the reduction of 
tariff taxes, still went on in their career, calling for troops and breathing 
defiance to the General Government. The president, early in January, sent 
a special message to Congress, setting forth these hostile proceedings, and 
making such recommendations to that body as he deemed to be wise. 

Mr. Clay, on the 12th of February, introduced a bill in the Senate for 
the reduction of duties on imports. It proposed an annual reduction for 
nine years, or until the tariff reached a revenue standard. He accompanied 
this bill with a speech of some length, in which he gave the reasons that 
impelled him to introduce it. We copy a few of those reasons. Said Mr._ 
Clay: f 

"I believe the American system to be in the greatest danger, and I be- 
lieve it can be placed on a better and safer foundation at this session than 
at the next. I heard, with surprise, my friend from Massachusetts say that 
nothing had occurred within the last six months to increase its hazard. I 
entreat him to review that opinion. Is it correct? Is the issue of numerous 
elections, including that of the highest officer of the government, nothing ? 
Is the explicit recommedation of that officer, in his message at the opening 
of the session, sustained, as he is, by a recent triumphant election, nothing? 
Is his declaration in his proclamation, that the burdens of the South ought 
to be relieved, nothing? Is the introduction of the bill in the House of 
Representatives during this session sanctioned by the head of the Treasury 
and the administration, prostrating the greater part of the manufactures of 
.the country, nothing? Are the increasing discontents nothing? Is the 
tendency of recent events to unite the whole South nothing? Let us not 



VIEWS OF JOHN C. CALHOUN. 58r 

deceive ourselves. Now is the time to adjust the question in a manner 
satisfactory to both parties. Put it off until the next session, and the alter- 
native may, and probably then would be, a speedy and ruinous reduction 
of the tariff, or a civil war with the entire South." 

On the evening of the 25th of February, when the House of Representa- 
tives was nearly ready to adjourn, Mr. Letcher, of Kentucky, one of Mr. 
Clay's most devoted friends, arose in his place, and moved to strike out the 
whole bill, except the enacting clause, which had been reported by the com- 
mittee of ways and means, and insert in lieu of it the bill offered by Mr. 
Clay in the Senate. This motion struck many members with surprise, but 
not the majority, who had previously agreed to support it. The vote was 
at once taken, and the substitute passed — yeas, one hundred and five; nays, 
seventy-one. The members representing manufacturing States generally 
voted in the negative, and nearly all the Southern members voted in the 
affirmative. The bill was deemed a compromise of conflicting opinions, 
and was so received by the country. When it was sent back to the Senate 
indorsed by thirty-four majority in the House, it was passed by that body — 
yeas, twenty-nine; nays, sixteen — and soon signed by General Jackson. 
There was great rejoicing over the country, including South Carolina, whose 
senators and representatives, without a dissenting voice, had voted for the 
bill. The nullification storm was immediately hushed, and all was peace 
throughout the land. All honor to the patriots who brought about the set- 
tlement ; due honor to the immortal Clay ! 

Thus, to the patriotic wisdom and leadership of Kentucky statesmen in 
the two houses of Congress directly, was due the conciliatory adjustment of 
the first bold attempt at nullification and secession in a disaffected State, 
based on a strained and untenable interpretation of the doctrine of States' 
rights, as set forth in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798. It will be interesting 
to know the views of John C. Calhoun, then a senator from South Carolina, 
and the great master of this political school in his day. Of his speech in 
this debate, the Register of Debates says : 

" Mr. Calhoun arose and said he would make but one or two observa- 
tions. Entirely approving of the object for which this bill was introduced, 
Tie should give his vote in favor of the motion for leave to introduce it. He 
who loved the Union most desired to see this agitating question brought to a 
termination. He believed that to the unhappy divisions which had kept the 
Northern and Southern States apart from each other, the present entirely de- 
graded condition of the country (for entirely degraded he believed it to be) 
"vvas solely attributable. The general principles of this bill received his 
approbation. He believed that if the present difficulties were to be adjusted, 
they must be adjusted on the principles embraced in the bill, of fixing ad 
valorem duties, except in the few cases in the bill to which specific duties 
were assigned. He said that it had been his fate to occupy a position as 
hostile as any one could, in reference to the protecting policy; but, if it 



586 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

depended on his will, he would not give his vote for the prostration of the 
manufacturing interests. At this time, he did not rise to go into a consid- 
eration of any of the details of this bill, as such a course would be prema- 
ture and contrary to the practice of the Senate. There were some of the 
provisions which had his entire approbation, and there were some to which 
he objected. But he looked upon these minor points of difference as points 
in the settlement of which no difficulty would occur, when gentlemen met 
together in that spirit of mutual compromise which, he doubted not, would 
be brought into their deliberations without at all yielding the constitutional 
question as to the right of protection." 

The catastrophe was averted, but the Dies Iroe was bequeathed by the 
fathers of one generation to their children of the next. 

Of the measures advocated by Mr. Clay during his active career in Con- 
gress, were the incorporation of a United States bank; the principle of a 
protective tariff, applied until the manufacturing interests of the country 
could be nursed to compete with those of Europe ; the aid of the Govern- 
ment to internal improvements of a national character; the disposition of 
the public lands of the United States; and others of lesser note. On the 
31st of March, 1842, the Nestor of American politics executed his long- 
cherished wish to retire from public life, and to spend the remainder of his 
days in the tranquil shades of Ashland. Tendering his resignation in the 
Senate, the scenes of parting were thrilling and affecting, beyond descrip- 
tion. Had the guardian genius of Congress and the nation been about to 
depart, deeper sensations of sadness and regret could not have been mani- 
fested, than when Mr. Clay arose, for the last time, as every mind was 
impressed, to address his compeers. All felt that the master spirit was bid- 
ding them adieu, and perhaps, forever; and were grieved that the pride and 
ornament of the Senate and the glory of the nation was being removed, 
creating a void that would never again be filled. 

Failing as he did, in the contest of 1844, he gave up all hopes of the 
presidency, and resigned himself to the retirement he had chosen. In 
1847, he publicly avowed his faith in the Christian religion, and united with 
the Protestant Episcopal church, at Lexington, that he might dwell in com- 
munion with his God and Heaven. From the privacy and repose the 
venerable sage and chieftain had sought, the ominous mutterings of the 
storm-cloud of the slavery issue, threatening already to sever the Union and 
to drench the land with fratricidal blood, the popular voice of alarm called 
him rudely forth to perform the last acts in the drama of a wondrous life, 
upon the great theater of politics, where he had so long been the greatest 
of the nation's great. The emergency was one that respected not persons 
or conditions; and the decree went forth, that the laureled chieftain must 
again clothe himself with the armor of battle, bear it forth through the strug- 
gle, and die with it on. Bearing upon his shoulders the burden of years, 
he bowed submissive obedience to the stern demand, did his duty faithfully 



ELECTION CONTESTS. 587 

and heroically, and then died, as he had lived, in the service of his country 
and of humanity. 

David Merri wether was appointed to the vacancy of Mr. Clay in the 
United States Senate, by Governor Powell, and served until the close of the 
session. Archibald Dixon, having been elected by the Legislature, on its 
next assembling, succeeded Mr. Merriwether, and served out the remainder 
of Mr. Clay's term. 

On the 4th day of August, 1856, Alvin Duvall was elected judge of the 
Court of Appeals, against Thomas A. Marshall; and on June 15th, of next 
year, Zachariah Wheat was elected to a seat on the same bench, to fill a 
vacancy occasioned by the death of B. Mills Crenshaw. 

In the presidential election of 1856, Kentucky cast her vote as follows : 
For James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge, democratic, for president 
and vice-president, 69,509 votes; for Millard Fillmore and Andrew J. Don- 
elson, American or whig, 63,391; and for John C. Fremont and William 
Dayton, republican, 314. The tide of native American sentiment had evi- 
dently begun its ebb. For governor, in 1857, James H. Garrard, democrat, 
received a majority of 12,114 votes over his American opponent. Eight 
democrats and two Americans were chosen for Congress, and sixty-one 
democrats, to thirty-nine Americans, for representatives in the Legislature. 

In 1858, Lazarus W. Powell was elected United States Senator for the 
term of six years, from March 4, 1859; Rankin R. Revill, clerk of the 
Court of Appeals, over George R. McKee; and Henry C. Wood, judge of 
the same court, over Zachariah Wheat, in the Second district; all these 
being democrats. 

A rebellion against the United States Government having been organized 
by the Mormons in Utah, a requisition for a regiment of volunteer troops 
was made upon Kentucky to aid in suppressing the same. Twenty-one 
companies were promptly offered, of which Governor Morehead selected 
ten, officered by Captains Wales, of Jefferson; Hanks, of Anderson; Beard, 
of Fayette; Trapnall, of Mercer; Pearce, of Trimble; McHenry, of Daviess; 
Rogers, of Jefferson; Moore, of Pendleton; Adair, of Union; and Rees, of 
Kenton. But in April, a peace commission, composed of Lazarus W. Pow- 
ell, of Kentucky, and Benjamin McCuUough, of Texas, was sent by the 
Government, and negotiated terms of adjustment that allayed all strife, 
when the troops were disbanded. 

In 1859, one of the most interesting contests which terminated the power 
and organization of the Whig party in Kentucky was witnessed in the 
gubernatorial campaign. Beriah Magoffin and Linn Boyd were the chosen 
nominees of the Democratic party, and Joshua F. Bell and Alfred Allen, of 
the Whig. The State was thoroughly and ably canvassed, and the candi- 
dates were favorites with the respective parties. The sentiment was pervading 
that the Democratic party was sound and stable on the slavery question, and 
that too many elements in the Whig party were in sympathy with the oppo- 



588 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




sition. Nor had the latter party recovered the full confidence of the public, 
after the demoralizing experience with Know Nothingism, notwithstanding 
the selection of a candidate for governor, who was possessed of great prestige 
and popularity, and who was one of the most gifted and brilliant orators of 
the State. Magoffin and Boyd were elected by majorities approximating 
nine thousand votes. 

The period from 1848 to 1857, in Kentucky, was one of steady prosper- 
______ _ ity, with but little to divert the people 

from the ordinary industrial pursuits. 
The first six years of this period estab- 
lished a business confidence and credit, 
which led to temptations to venture out 
into speculative enterprise, beyond the 
demands of legitimate business. This 
spirit of venture led to the inevitable 
inflation of values of all kinds of prop- 
erty, and the experience of fifteen 
years before was repeated. A flush 
tide of illusive gain and prosperity 
overflowed the country, and the great 
masses of men floated easily upon 
it. 1 This was general throughout 
the United States. The demand for 
money led to quite a percentage of increase in the banking capital of 
Kentucky; and the facility with which credit could be used in borrowing 
money led to an expansion of indebtedness abnormal to the conditions 
of general solvency and safety. The inevitable followed. The bubble 
burst, as it had done before, in 1837; as it did after, in 1873. Among 
the multiplied banks which had so extended circulation, several newly- 
chartered institutions suspended or went into insolvency; but the old 
established banks, on which the people depended for support, weathered 
the storm. In a few months they called in half their paper, and the 
remainder of their notes became the standard of circulation of the Ohio 
valley. They maintained specie payments throughout the crisis and to the 
end of the financial storm. The good credit thus secured enhanced the 
confidence and profit of these banks. So popular became their currency, 
that in 1859 their circulation amounted to over fourteen million dollars, 
being an increase of five million dollars within a year. 

These results of a banking experience which had been matured at 
home, and controlled entirely by men reared upon the soil, mainly 
separated from the business traditions of the world, and whose individ- 
uality had developed their own methods, give to Kentuckians a good 
claim for eminent capacity in this difficult task of dealing with the 

I Shaler's American Commonwealths, p. 220. 



JOSHUA F. BELL. 



REFLECTIONS UPON KENTUCKY HISTORY. 589 

monetary problems of the day. This claim was yet further established, 
as we note hereafter, by the conservative and skillful management of 
these banks during the perils and difficulties which beset them during 
the civil war. We quote here some very able and pertinent reflections 
of a recent author upon Kentucky history : ^ 

" As we must shortly pass to the consideration of the events that imme- 
diately preceded the civil war, which made a new era in Kentucky history, 
it will be well to make a brief survey of the political and social conditions 
of the Commonwealth in the decade of 1850-60. So far, the life of Ken- 
tucky had been an indigenous growth, a development from its own condi- 
tions, singularly uninfluenced by any external forces. With only the germs 
of a society sown on this ground, there had sprung into existence a power- 
ful Commonwealth, that now, at the end of eighty years of time, felt strong 
enough to stand alone in the struggles that were soon to rage about her. 
No other State in the Mississippi valley — hardly any of the original South- 
ern States — had pursued its course with so little influence from external 
conditions. There had been relatively little contributions of population 
from other States, except from Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania 
and Maryland, and but a small immigration from European countries 
since 1800. This made an indigenous development not only possible, 
but necessary. 

" From 1774 to i860, eighty-five years had elapsed. This period meas- 
ures the whole course of Kentucky history, from the first settlement at 
Harrodsburg to the beginning of the great tragedy of the civil war. As 
before recounted, the original settlement and the subsequent increase of the 
Kentucky population were almost entirely drawn from the Virginia, North 
Carolina and Maryland colonies ; at least nine-five per cent, of the popu- 
lation was from these districts. Probably more than half of this blood was 
of Scotch and North English extraction — practically the whole of it was of 
British stock. The larger part of it was from the frontier region of Virginia, 
where the people had never had much to do with slavery. 

" The total number of these white settlers who entered Kentucky in the 
first eighty-five years can not be determined with any approach to accuracy; 
but from a careful consideration of the imperfect statistics that are available, 
it seems reasonable to estimate the whole number of white immigrants at 
not more than one hundred and twenty thousand, while the slave popula- 
tion that was brought into the State probably did not amount to one-third 
this number. In i860, the white population amounted to 919,484, and the 
slave population to 225,483; the free black population to 10,684. Of the 
white population of this census, 59,799 were born beyond the limits of the 
United States. This element of foreign folk was in the main a very recent 
addition to the State. It was mainly due to the sudden development of 
manufacturing interests along the Ohio border, principally in the towns 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealths, pp. 321-29. 



590 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of Louisville, Covington, and Newport, and to certain new settlements of 
agriculturist Germans in the counties forming the northern border of the 
State. The foreign-born people had not yet become to any degree mingled 
with the native people, either in the industries or in blood. 

" Before we can estimate the fecundity of this population, we must note 
the fact that from 1820 or thereabouts down to i860 and later, there was a 
very great tide of emigration from Kentucky to the States that were settled 
in the other portions of the Mississippi valley. The southern parts of Ohio, 
Indiana and Illinois received a large part of their blood from Kentucky. 
Missouri was so far a Kentucky settlement that it may be claimed as a child 
of the Commonwealth. Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas, also 
received a large share of the Kentucky emigrants. The imperfect nature 
of the earlier statistics of the United States census makes it impossible to 
determine with any accuracy the number of persons of Kentucky blood who 
were in i860 residents in other States; but the data given make it tolerably 
clear that the total contribution of Kentucky to the white population of the 
other States amounted in i860 to at least one million souls. The increase in 
the black population was probably rather less than that of the white, but 
there is no data for its computation. 

" If this estimate is correct the fecundity of the Kentucky population in 
the first eighty years of its life exceeds that which is recorded for any other 
region in the world. There are several reasons which may account for this 
rapid multiplication of this people. In the first place the original settlers of 
Kentucky were of vigorous constitution; they were not brought upon the 
foil by any solicitations whatever, nor were they forced into immigration by 
the need of subsistence. Access to the country was difficult, and for some 
decades the region was exposed to dangers from which all weak-bodied men 
would shrink. The employment of the early population was principally in 
agriculture, upon a soil that gave very free returns. There was plenty of 
unoccupied land for the rising generations, so there were no considerations 
of a prudential nature to restrain the increase of population. For a long 
time children were a source of advantage to the land-tiller, and apart from 
pecuniary gain there was a curious patriarchal pride in a plenteous off- 
spring. The climate proved exceedingly healthy. There were no low-grade 
malarial fevers to enfeeble the body, and the principal disease of the early 
days, a high-grade bilious fever, though rather deadly, did not impoverish 
the life as the malarial troubles of other regions in the Mississippi valley 
have done. Thus the first population of Kentucky was from the purest 
spring that ever fertilized a country, and there was little to defile its waters. 
The principal evils that beset the population were two — first, the excessive 
use of tobacco and alcohol, which doubtless did something to lower the 
vitality of the population ; second, the extremely defective system of educa- 
tion, which left the people essentially without the means of getting a training 
proportionate to their natural abilities. 



I 



EFFECTS OF SLAVERY. 59I 

"The institution of slavery tended to keep the industrial and the related 
social development confined within narrow lines. At the beginning of the 
century the State had an industrial spirit that was fit to compare with that 
of New England and the other Northern free States. Many of the arts 
that were exercised by the whites took on a rapid advance, but the negro is 
not by nature a good general citizen, nor could he be expected to develop 
his capacities in the state of slavery. Gradually manual labor, except in 
agriculture, became in a way discreditable and distasteful to the mastering 
race. The mechanical industries, except those of the simpler domestic sort, 
were generally abandoned, even before northern and eastern competition 
came in. This want of manufacturing life was by no means an unmitigated 
•evil, for it kept the people in more wholesale occupation ; but it served to 
restrain the growth of wealth, on which the progress of education and the 
development of capital much depend. The development of slavery was 
also marked by the progressive separation of society into a richer and a 
poorer class, though, from the failure of the slave element to increase with 
the rapidity normal in the more Southern States, the effect was not as great 
as in these districts. The middle class of farmers in Kentucky — those who, 
though fairly well to-do, were not slave-owners — always remained a very 
strong, in fact, a controlling, element in the Kentucky population. The 
greater part of the tide of strong life that went from Kentucky to other 
States, in the four decades that preceded the civil war, was from the yeoman 
class, the reddest, if not the bluest, blood of the State. 

' ' Despite these hindrances to social development, the commercial advance 
of Kentucky in the first eighty years of her history was marvelously great, 
especially as it was accomplished practically without the aid of any foreign 
capital whatever. This absence of immigrant capital in Kentucky in the 
first sixty or eighty years of its history is something that well deserves to 
be considered in measuring the development of the State. Until the close 
of the civil war there was scarcely an improvement in the Commonwealth 
that was not the result of the capital won by the people. In connection 
with this, it should be remembered that the expenditure of labor required 
to bring an acre of Kentucky land under tillage is many times as great as 
that required to subjugate prairie land. The mere felling of the forest 
and grubbing of the roots require at least twenty days' labor to the acre 
of ground. 

' ' It requires a vivid imagination, or some personal experience, to conceive 
of the enormous amount of physical labor involved in the bringing of forest 
land into a shape for the use of civilized man. In all the Northern States, 
the work of subjugation and construction which is necessary on new ground 
was, in good part, accomplished by the aid of capital that was brought into 
the country in its settlement. None of these outside aids were offered to 
Kentucky. The first settlers had little capital beyond the price of their 
lands and a few household effects that could be packed on horses or wagoned 



592 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

over the mountains. All their wealth they had to win from the soil and from 
their little factories. 

"Two circumstances greatly helped this people to establish the foundation 
of their wealth. The settlements at the mouth of the Mississippi afforded, 
in a very early day, a considerable market for certain products of the soil, 
especially for tobacco. This plant, which had given a basis for the early 
commerce of Virginia, helped in turn the development of Kentucky. As 
early as 1790, there was a considerable shipment of this article. General 
Wilkinson, whose last shipments were in 1790, received, as was found in his 
court-martial, as much as $80,000 for a small part of his tobacco alone from 
the Spanish agents, and he was only the pioneer in this business,, which 
afterward grew to be a great commerce, even before the cession of the 
Louisiana Territory to the United States. 

" In i860, Kentuckians had already won nearly one-half of the State's 
surface to the plow. The remainder was still in forests. At no time had 
there been any pressure for means of subsistence upon the people. The soils 
of the first quality were now actively under tillage or in grass. Nearly one- 
third of the State was still covered with original forests, rich in the best 
timbers, and the mineral wealth of the State was essentially untouched. 
The geological survey of Dr. David Dale Owen had shown that this country 
was extraordinarily rich in coal-beds and iron-ore deposits, but the State, 
in the main, drew its supply of timber, coal and iron from beyond its bor- 
ders. All its principal industries were agricultural, and its exports were 
raw products and men — exports, as has been well remarked, that naturally 
go out together, and to impoverish a country. 

"Its growth of population was now, in the later decade of its existence, 
relatively slow; not that the people were less fecund than of old, but the 
trifling incoming of settlers along its northern borders did not in any degree 
replace the constant westward-setting tide of emigration." 



EVENTS OF THE PERIOD FROM lS6o TO 1863. 



593 



CHAPTER XXYII. 

(1860-63.) 



Views and forebodings of the great civil 
war. 

Feeling in Kentucky. 

Clay and Crittenden as peacemakers. 

Abduction of slaves. 

The "Underground Railroad." 

Disintegration and division of old par- 
ties. 

Repeal of Missouri Compromise. 

Squatter Sovereignty. 

The Republicans elect Abraham Lincoln 
president. 

Other candidates. 

Leslie Combs, Union, elected clerk of 
Appellate Court. 

Kentucky as a central border State. 

Crittenden's compromise bill. 

Acts of State convention and Legisla- 
ture, January, 1861. 

National Peace Conference. 

Fort Sumter fired on and surrenders. 

General Robert Anderson. 

I>incoln's call for troops. 

Magoffin's defiant answer. 

Pleas for "neutrality" for Kentucky. 

Responses. 

Provisions to maintain. 

One million dollars voted to equip the 
" Home' Guards" and "State Guards." 

General Simon B. Buckner. 

Elections. 

Anti-secession. 

Partisan men and movements. 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Jefferson Davis. 

The inevitalde. 

Manassas. 

The war fury. 

Secession versus revolution. 

Fallacy and fact. 

Recruiting. 

Camps for both. 



Legislature calls for forty thousand vol- 
unteers. 

Battle of New Madrid 

General Albert Sidney Johnston at Bow- 
ling Green. 

Polk at Columbus. 

Noted Kentuckians arrested. 

Others join the Southern army. 

ZoUicoffer at Wild Cat mountain. 

Ivy mountain. 

Anarchy and violence. 

Divided households, churches, and com- 
munities. 

Lawless Home Guards. 

Guerrillas. 

Indictments for treason. 

Confederate State Government organ- 
ized. 

General Finnell, adjutant-general. 

Garfield's campaign. 

Battle of Mill Spring. 

Defeat and death of Zollicoflfer. 

General Buell's command. 

General Grant's. 

Sherman's dismal report. 

Relative forces. 

Confederates badly armed. 

Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson. 

Surrender. 

General Buckner shares the fate of the 
soldiers. 

His life. 

General Johnston's retreat. 

Columbus evacuated. 

Federals occupy Nashville. 

President Lincoln and Congress offer to 
pay for slaves emancipated by any States, 

Refusals. 

Why? 

Retreat and invasion further south. 

Johnston and Grant meet at Pittsburgh 
Landing. 



3^ 



594 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Great battle of Shiloh. 
Grant's army disastrously defeated. 
General A. S. Johnston slain. 
Buell rescues Grant and defeats Beaure- 
gard. 

George W. Johnson killed. 

Kentucky "Orphan " Brigade. 

Kentucky Federal troops engaged. 

South-west campaigns. 

General John H. Morgan's cavalry. 

His methods. 

Colonel Basil W. Duke. 

Morgan's first raid through Kentucky. 

Force and equipments. 

Fight at Tompkinsville. 

Ellsworth's telegraphic feats. 

Capture of Lebanon. 

At Midway. 

To Georgetown. 

Battle of Cynthiana. 

Escapes south. 

Pursuit. 

Colonel J. J. Landrum. 

Rigors of martial law. 

General Boyle, commandant. 

Provost marshals. 

Terms to rebels. 

Rule of Stanton, secretary of war. 

Horrors of civil strife. 



Federal enlistments. 

Governor Magoffin resigns. 

James F. Robinson governor. 

Leniency. 

Battle of Hartsville. 

Kirby Smith's invasion. 

Routs the Federal army at Richmond. 

Occupies all East Kentucky. 

General Humphrey Marshall. 

Escape from Cumberland Gap. 

Bright omens for the Confederate cause. 

Stirring events on both sides. 

Bragg's invasion. 

Buell cut off. 

Munfordville cajitured. 

Extraordinary retreat of Bragg. 

Buell marches into Louisville. 

Disappointments. 

Consequences. 

Buell on the offensive. 

Skirmishing. 

Main tactics and movements. 

Desperate battle at Perryville. 

Bragg falls back to Harrodsburg. 

To Bryantsville. 

To Tennessee. 

Detachment fights. 

The Federals hold Kentucky again. 

Dark omens for the Confederate cause. 



The cry of the petrel heralding the coming storm never fell with more 
ominous forebodings on the sailor's ears than did the conspiring incidents 
and notes of warning of the inevitable crisis and catastrophe of conflict 
between the two sections of the Union, on the issue of slavery. It is doubt- 
ful if the people of any other State bore the incubus of apprehension upon 
their spirits with more of regretful sadness than did those of Kentucky. 
Certainly none more clearly forecast and appreciated the appalling dangers 
of the irrepressible strife. With the people of the North, the desperate 
determination of the South to hazard the peace of the country and the per- 
petuity of slavery, upon the fact of a disruption of the Union, as the lesser 
in a choice of evils, could not be realized in an estimate of the situation. 
The fear of a destruction of the Federal fabric, therefore, did not so strongly 
appeal to their patriotism. With the people of the extreme South, the vir- 
tues of patriotic devotion to the Union had been engulfed in the universal 
consciousness that their rights and chief interests were jeopardized by the 
accession to power of an anti-slavery administration ; that safety could only 
be sought in dissolution and separate government, and that such solution 
could be attained without the probabilities of a war of conquest, and the 



THE FEELING IN KENTUCKY. 595 

destruction of the peculiar institution. In the intense resentments of the 
two extremes, reason became obscured by passion, with both parties. 

The great heart of Kentucky did not fully share in the arbitrary views 
of the one section or the other. Her convictions and traditions, her interests 
and hopes, her devotions and desires, were with the Union ; her sympathies, 
her partialities, her kinship, were with the South. With this conflict of emo- 
tions, she was called upon to make a choice between alternate evils, from 
one of which she shrank as with a horror of fratricide; from the other, with 
the terrors of ungrateful disloyalty and anarchy. Earliest, above the mut- 
terings of the storm, were the voices of her sage and venerable statesmen 
signaling the dangers, and the putting forth every human device to avert the 
catastrophe, or to postpone the dreaded crisis. The last years of Henry 
Clay were overcast with the shadow of the dark trouble coming. His com- 
promises had served a purpose for the time; but the great upheaving waves 
of sectional and party fury were beating away these barriers, soon to inundate 
the whole country with their destructive wrath. His distinguished colleague 
and bosom friend, John J. Crittenden, followed in this lead of warning 
danger, and of averting compromise. By such statesmen and patriots the 
people of Kentucky had their views and feelings reflected. Their training 
and experience in the most practical politics gave them an instinctive sense 
of the magnitude of the dangers besetting the Commonwealth and the whole 
country. 

Kentucky, as the central border State, with a large slave element within 
easy distance of the Ohio-river line, was subjected to repeated annoyances 
and irritations from the loss of this species of property. Organized agencies 
were multiplied on the northern side, with their emissaries traversing and 
ramifying this portion of the State, for the purpose of abducting and run- 
ning across the river the slaves of this section. With the zeal of martyrs, 
some of these emissaries, by speech and tract, prosecuted their work as 
though moved by the spirit of religious fanaticism. The arrest, conviction, 
and imprisonment in the penitentiary, did not stay the work, or abate the 
zeal. The temper of the people on the north side made it dangerous to 
pursue the fugitives, and more than doubtful to seek redress in the courts, 
under the provisions of the "Fugitive slave law." "The underground 
railroad," though an invisible institution to ordinary outsiders, gave too 
many practical evidences of daily use to leave any doubt on the mind of its 
existence. The title became a household word in every mouth. 

With these agitations and upheavals, which were but the symptomatic 
vibrations of the earthquake to come, political chaos spread her sable wings 
over the land. The old Whig party, after reeling into the arms of Know 
Nothingism, soon forsook such a refuge, and tottered back upon its base, 
only for a brief respite. Rapid decay set in, and the disintegrating elements 
almost as rapidly merged into the Republican party organization, in the 
Northern States, only to be massed against the fragments of the Democratic 



596 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

party, soon to be sundered, and against the forlorn hope of the old Whig 
party on its bst battlefield. 

In i860, the Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln and Han- 
nibal Ham.in for president and vice-president of the United States; and the 
Union party, John Bell and Edward Everett. ^ The Democratic party had 
been divided in twain, and irreconcilably. The people of the South, 
through all the rage of the tempest of political wrath let loose over the 
whole country, had firmly and immovably held to the traditional doctrine 
and precedent of " States' Rights; " that the people of each new State, at 
the time of coming into the Union, had the right to form their own State 
government, and say whether slavery should be adopted in the constitution 
or not. By i860, the party of encroachment had assumed gigantic and 
threatening proportions. When the territorial governments of Kansas and 
Nebraska were about to be thus formed, the conservative men of the North 
joined the men of the South, in Congress, and repealed the restrictive meas- 
ures of compromise which had been adopted before by this body. On the 
border line between these territories and the slave State of Missouri a state 
of internecine warfare had for some years existed, between those in favor 
of carrying their slave property into the territories and the propagandists of 
abolition. The episode was but a phase of the "irrepressible conflict," that 
hastened the event of dissolution. The repeal of the compromise measures 
made the excitement furious. 

Stephen A. Douglas, a senator from Illinois, though a man of vigorous and 
able mind, yet more of the shifty politician than the sagacious and discreet 
statesman, conceived and advocated a method of relief, which was entitled 
the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty." This doctrine proposed to leave 
to the settlers in the territory the question of the introduction or holding 
of slaves therein. Though its plausibility carried away multitudes fromS 
the ranks of Democracy, it proved neither to conciliate the exasperated 
North nor to be acceptable to the South, yet an apple of discord in the 
Democratic Troy. The national convention met at Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, and, after fifty-seven ballots, failed to nominate ; then adjourned to 
Baltimore. Here a large portion of the delegations withdrew from the 
meeting, after protesting against certain action. The remaining delegates 
nominated Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson for the presidential 
ticket, while the seceding members formed and nominated John C. Breckin- 
ridge and Joseph Lane. 

The result was the election of the Republican candidates, Lincoln and - 
Hamlin, by a sectional vote. Kentucky gave to Bell and Everett 66,016 1 
votes; to Breckinridge and Lane, 52,836; to Douglas and Johnson, 25,644; 
and to Lincoln and Hamlin, 1,366. John C. Breckinridge, at the time vice- 
president, had been, on the 12th of December before, elected to the Senate 
of the United States, showing the Democratic party then to be in the as- 

I Collins, Vol. 1., Annals. 



I 



TRIUMPH OF THE UNION TICKET.^ 



597 




General John C. Breckinridge, son of 
Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, and grandson of 
Hon. John Breckinridge, was born near Lex- 
ington, January 2i, 1821 ; graduated at Cen- i 
tre College, and completed his law studies 
at Transylvania; practiced at Lexington, 
and at Burlington, Iowa ; entered the Mex- 
ican war as major of the Tiiird Kentucky 
Regiment; ^^•as elected to the Legislatu 
in 1849; to Congress in 1851 and 1853, frc 
the Lexington district, and soon took ra: 1 
as the most elegant and popular orator of 
that body, rising rapidly to political emi- 
nence; in 1856, was elected vice-president of 
the United States on the ticket with James 
Buchanan; defeated for president in i860; 
elected United States senator in 1861, and 
resigned the same year to join his fortunes 
with the Confederate cause. His brilliant GENERAL JOHN C BPECKUlRiOGE. 

military career at Bowling Green, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, Murfreesboro, Jack- 
eon. Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and in West and South-west Virginia, are of his- 
toric record. He was Confederate States secretary of war at the close, escaping by way 
of Cuba and England to Canada, finally returning to Lexington and devoting himself 
to the construction of the Lexington & Big Sandy railroad, of which he was vice-presi- 
dent until his death, May 17, 1875. This country has, perhaps, never produced a man 
more richly endowed with imposing personal presence and manly form and features, 
with elegant and popular manners, and with magnetic and graceful oratory. The jug- 
gernaut of war never stained its wheels with nobler blood nor left a grander spirit in 
ruins. 

cendency in the Legislature, with a Democratic governor. ^It will thus 
appear that the Democratic or States' Rights party had the destiny of the 
State in their hands at the outbreak of the civil war. A very large number 
of the leaders of the party were doubtless inclined to follow the South, if 
disunion should be the alternative adopted in the event of Mr. Lincoln's 
election. Their motives were mainly held in reticence for a time, though 
gradually they became apparent from many indices of expression. Would 
the great mass of the people follow this element of leadership when the mo- 
ment of decisive action came? A test was had in advance at the State 
election in August, i860. Leslie Combs, Union, received 68,165 votes; 
Clinton McCarty, Breckinridge Democrat, 44,942; and R. R. Boiling, 
Union Democrat, 10,971, showing a majority leaning to the side of the 
Union of 39,184. 

2 Shaler well says of this state of political affairs: "It would not be 
proper to represent this feeling of the conservative party as an unqualified 
approval of the project of remaining in the Union without regard to condi- 
tions. The state of mind of the masses of the people at this time is hard to 



1 Shaler's Commonwealths, p. 233. 



2 Kentucky Commonwealths, pp. 234-37. 



598 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

make clear to those who, by geographical position, were so fortunate as to 
have their minds borne into a perfectly-definite position in this difficult ques- 
tion of national politics. The citizen of Massachusetts, or the citizen of 
South Carolina, surrounded by institutions and brought up under associa- 
tions which entirely committed him to a course of action that was unques- 
tionably the will of the people, had only to float on a current that bore him 
along. Whatever the issue might be, unity of action within his sphere was 
easily attained. Not so with the citizen of Kentucky. The Commonwealth 
was pledged by a generation of conservatism, the sentiment of which had 
been repeatedly enunciated in county and State conventions and in many 
assemblies of the people. At the same time, if the Union should go to 
pieces utterly, what should she do to save her own staunch ship from the 
general peril ? The ties of blood and of institutions bound Kentucky with 
the Southern States, which were soon to drift away from the Union. The 
pledge of political faith tied her to the fragment of the Union with which 
she had not much of social sympathy, and in which she could not expect 
much comfort. Surely, never was a people more unhappily placed. Out of 
this chaos of anxious doubt there came a curious state of mind, which soon 
took shape and action. 

"The general opinion of Kentucky was that the war was an unnatural 
strife, which would necessarily result in the certain, though, as hoped, tem- 
porary disruption of the Union they loved so well. They did not believe 
that the States had a moral right to secede; on the other hand, they did not 
believe that the Federal Government had the constitutional or other right to 
coerce them back into the Union. Their profound desire and preference 
was that the withdrawing States should be allowed to go in peace. ' She 
would stay where her pledges kept her, and, after a sorrowful experience, 
she believed that her erring sisters would return to the fold. If the Federal 
Government determined what seemed to them the unconstitutional process 
of arms to compel the States to return into the Union, Kentucky would 
have no part in the process. She would stand aloof, while both North and 
South left the paths of duty under the Constitution, bidding them not to in- 
vade her soil with their hostile armies. In the wild talk of the time, this 
neutrality project of Kentucky was denounced as cowardly. There may be 
in the world people whom it would be proper to defend from this accusa- 
tion; but not in this history. With Kentucky, this attitude was a sorrowful 
and noble, though, it must be confessed in the after-light of events, a some- 
what Quixotic, position. In the rage of the storm almost ready to break in 
its fury upon the country, it appeared at the time a very rational standing^ 
ground. If war came into Kentucky, it would be internecine and fratri- ■ 
cidal. It was not the fear of war, for the losses and dangers it might bring; 
but our people did look with terror on the fight between friends and neigh- 
bors and brothers. They were justified in their own minds, and will be 
justified in the reasonable opinions of mankind, in adopting what appeared 



( 



THE FIRST FIRE ON FORT SUMTER. 599 

to them would avert such war, and possibly enable them to stand finally as 
peacemakers between the hostile sections." 

On the assembling of Congress in December, i860, John J. Crittenden 
introduced his famous compromise into the Senate of the United States : 
to restore the Missouri line of 36° 30'; prohibit slavery north of that line; 
permit it south, if the people of the State wished ; prohibit Congress from 
abolishing slavery in the States ; permit free transmission of slaves through 
any State ; pay for fugitive slaves rescued after arrest ; and to ask the repeal 
of personal-liberty bills in the Northern States. These provisions to be sub- 
mitted to the people as amendments to the Constitution, and, if adopted, 
never again to be disturbed. Mr. Crittenden followed the reading of these 
with one of the most eloquent and touching speeches of his patriotic life; 
but in vain. They were voted down by a majority of thirteen. 

A convention of the constitutional Union men of Kentucky, both of the 
Whig and Democratic parties, met in Louisville on the 8th of January fol- 
lowing, indorsed these resolutions, and deplored the existence of a Union 
to be upheld by force of arms. On the 17th, the Legislature met, pursuant 
to the call of Governor Magoffin, in extra session, and passed resolutions 
inviting a national conference convention of delegates to meet for the pur- 
pose of considering measures of conciliation. This body also declared, by 
resolution, "the unconditional disapprobation of Kentucky of the employ- 
ment of force in any form against the seceding States." Upon the 25th, 
another resolution appealed to Congress to call a convention for proposing 
amendments to the Constitution of the L^nited States, pursuant to the fifth 
article thereof. On the 29th, yet another appointed six commissioners to 
the peace conference, to be held at Washington, on February the 4th, in 
accordance with the invitation of the Virginia Legislature. This latter con- 
vention did assemble, with a representation of one hundred and thirty-three 
commissioners, from twenty- one States, and remain in session twenty-three 
days deliberating terms of compromise. All in vain ! These expiring efforts 
to stay the swelling tides of coming wrath were more the wails and trepida- 
tions of despair than the sanguine expressions of hope. 

On the 1 2th of April, 1861, General Beauregard ordered the batteries in 
front of the city of Charleston to open fire on Fort Sumter. On the 13th, 
after thirty hours of destructive bombardment, the fort surrendered. The 
intelligence, flashed over the wires to every part of the country, intensified 
the spirit and passions of the belligerent sections beyond all control. The 
conflagration of war swept like a terrible cyclone over all parts of the sun- 
dered nation. 

Major Robert Anderson, one of the most trusted and honored officers 
of the United States army, was in command of the fort at the time. He 
did all that human skill and power could do in defense, yet conscious that 
the destruction of the fortress was inevitable. His fidelity refused a surren- 
der until every means and art of resistance were overcome. His gallantry 




6oO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

^ md grace commanded the praise of friend 
nd foe alike. This distinguished gende- 
nian was born at Louisville, June 14, 1805, 
and \vas a graduate of West Point, where for 
a time he was instructor of artillery. He 
served with credit and gallantry in the Black 
Hawk war, and in the Seminole campaigns, 
where he was breveted captain in the regu- 
lar army. He was aid to General Scott, and 
and in 1S41, was made colonel of artillery. 
He shared in the fortunes of General Scott's 
'irmy in the invasion of Mexico, and was 
ounded at Molino del Rey. In 1853, he 
GENERAL ROBERT ANDERbON. was placed in charge of the military asy- 
lum at Harrodsburg ; and in 1857, was major of the First United States 
artillery. In 1861, he commanded the important post of Charleston harbor, 
and met the shock of battle that inaugurated the terrible war of sections, 
as related above. General Anderson was afterward placed in command of 
the Kentucky department, and served with great honor and acceptance for 
a time, until failing health, in 1863, compelled his permanent retirement 
from the service. While on a tour of Europe seeking a restoration of health, 
he died at Nice, October 26, 187 1, yet honored and beloved by his country- 
men and friends. 

1 On the 15th of April, President Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand 
troops. The following telegraphic correspondence took place : ^ 

"Washington, D. C., April 15, 1861. — To His Excellency Beriah Ma- • 
gflffin, Governor of Kentucky : Call is made on you by to-night's mail for 
four regiments of militia, for immediate service. JL^j 

"Simon Cameron, Secretary of War." ■ 
"Frankfort, Ky., April 15, 1861. — Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of 
War: Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say, emphatically, Ken- 
tucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister 
Southern States. " B. Magoffin, Governor of Kentucky." 

In a speech at Lexington, Senator Crittenden appealed to Kentucky to 
take no part in the fratricidal strife. The "Union State Central Com- 
mittee," John H. Harney, George D. Prentice, Charles Ripley, Philip 
Tomppert, Nathaniel Wolfe, William F. Bullock, James Speed, Hamilton 
Pope, William P. Boone, and Lewis E. Harvie, issued an address of the same 
purport to the people. Petitions from thirty-one central counties, numerously 
signed, came in to the Legislature, "from the mothers, wives, sisters, and 
daughters of Kentucky," praying to "guard them from the direful calamity 
of civil war, by allowing Kentucky to maintain inviolate her armed neu- 
trality." Late in April, President Lincoln assured Hons. John J. Crittenden 

1 Collins, Vol. I., Annals of Kentucky. 



1 



REFUSAL TO FURNISH TROOPS. 6oi 

and Warner L. Underwood that he hoi)ed Kentucky would act with the 
Government; but if she would not, and remain neutral, no hostile step 
should tread her soil. In his inaugural message, on the 4th of March, Mr. 
Lincoln said : "I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the State where it exists. I be- 
lieve I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination." But no 
oil of words poured on the waters could now still the tempest-tossed waves. 
Nor could Mr. Lincoln, with all the power of the United States Government 
at command, have long stayed the encroaching and inundating tide of anti- 
slavery sentiment within constitutional limits, even if he desired to do so. 
This the South well knew. 

On April 2 2d, Hon. L. P. Walker, secretary of war of the Confederate 
States, requested Governor Magofifin to "furnish one regiment of troops, 
without delay, to rendezvous at Harper's Ferry, Virginia." A like refusal 
Avas the response. 

Governor Magoffin having asked of Governors Morton, of Indiana, and 
Dennison, of Ohio, to "co-operate with him in a peace proposition to the 
Government at Washington, by the mediation of the border States," was 
refused by both. 

1 At an informal conference of leading men of the Bell and Douglas par- 
ties, John J. Crittenden, Archibald Dixon, and S S. Nicholas, were selected 
to negotiate with Governor Magoffin, John C. Breckinridge, and Richard 
Hawes, of the Breckinridge party, to devise an adjustment that would bring 
about united action in the polling of the State. The first proposition, to 
call a State sovereignty convention to act in the emergency, was resisted by 
the Bell and Douglas men. The second proposition, to preserve armed 
neutrality, was unanimously agreed upon. The remaining subject of con- 
sideration, the raising, arming, organizing, and equipping the military forces 
of the State, was one of some contention ; but it was finally agreed to recom- 
mend that this should be done, and that the work should be placed in the 
hands of a committee, composed of General Simon B. Buckner, George W. 
Johnson, Gustavus W. Smith, Archibald Dixon, and Samuel Gill, and report 
to the Legislature. This body refused to adopt the recommendation. But 
on May the 24th, the same body adopted the plan outlined, and appointed 
on the committee of management, Governor Magoffin, Samuel Gill, George 
T. Wood, Peter Dudley, and Dr. John B. Peyton, who were authorized to 
borrow one million dollars. Arms and ammunition were to be purchased 
for arming the Home Guards, as organized for home and local defense, only. 
These were not to be used " against the United States, nor the Confederate 
States, unless in protecting from unlawful invasion." The governor, with 
the consent of the Senate, appointed General Buckner inspector-general; 
Scott Brown, adjutant-general; and M. D. West, quartermaster-general. 
The provisions for arming were now complete. 

I Collins, Vol. I., Annals of Kentucky. 



6o2 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



At the special election for congressmen, in June, 1861, Henry C. Burnett 
was the only States' Rights candidate elected. Of Union men, James S. 
Jackson, Henry Grider, Aaron Harding, Charles A. Wickliffe, George W. 
Dunlap, Robert Mallory, John J. Crittenden, William H. Wadsworth, and 
John W. Menzies, were elected by an aggregate majority of 54,760. The 
result shows that the mass of the people were for the Union overwhelmingly. 
In August, one hundred and three Union and thirty-five States' Rights 
members were elected to the Legislature. These expressions of the popular 
vote, and of the decided sentiments of the Legislature in favor of the Union, 1 ■ 
greatly deterred the leaders in sympathy with the South, and correspond- J 
ingly encouraged the friends of the Union. It is well-nigh certain that, if a 
sovereignty convention could have been called at any time before this forma- 
tion of the Union sentiment and policy into active and aggressive life, the 
State would have been carried off into the act of secession, as Virginia and 
Tennessee were, by the sense of sympathy and kinship toward the South. 
But the opportune hour was permitted to pass by unavailed of, and it was 
now too late. The destiny of Kentucky in the gigantic struggle was deter- 
mined, and for aught we know, the destiny of the Union, which may have 
hung in the balance. 

The militia who volunteered their services were armed and equipped, but 
divided into two classes — the State Guards, who at once went into camp^ 
and the Home Guards, who were held in reserve. It was openly alleged 

President Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth, 
president of the United States, was born Feb- 
ruary 12, 1809, in Hardin county, Kentucky. 
His parents, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy, 
formerly Hanks, moved to Lidiana in 1816, 
and in 1830, to Illinois. He was inured to- 
all the hardships and vicissitudes common to. _ 
early Western settlers, working, economizing^B J 
studying, and improving, under the strictest 
habits of self-discipline ; served as captain 
in the Black Hawk war ; eight years in the 
Legislature ; qualified for the law, and in 
1837, located in Springfield for the practice; 
elected to Congress in 1847, ^"^ led the Whig 
electoral ticket for General Scott, in 1852 jA| 




4 



m 



•jtA'f 



PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



after the Missouri compromise he became an 
open advocate of the anti-slavery republican 
party, and was elected president by it, in 
i860; which election eleven of the Southern 
States considered an adequate cause for seceding from the Federal Union, and the estab- 
lishment of a Confederate Union, with Jefferson Davis for its president. The result of 
the two causes was the greatest civil war known in history. The presidents of the two 
great opposing powers were both natives of Kentucky, the State that labored longest 
and most earnestly to avert the war. 



KENTUCKY S NEUTRALITY DIS'JURBED. 



603 




Jefferson Davis, president of the Confed- 
erate States, was born in Todd, then Christian, 
county, Kentucky, June 3, 1808; moved to Mis- 
sissippi. Educated at Transylvania, Lexington, 
Kentucky, until sixteen, and graduated in 182S 
at West Point. Served gallantly in the North- 
west Indian wars, in the Black Hawk and 
Mexican wars. Filled a number of political 
positions of trust ; in Congress as a representa- 
tive, in 1845 > ''^ ^1^^ Senate, in 1847, and in both 
again, subsequently. In the States' Rights con- 
tests for hfteen years, until the civil war, he was 
an able leader of his party, of invincible firmness 
and courage. After the acts of secession, and 
the establishment of the Confederacy, he vas 
elected its president. It is a remarkable coinci- 
dence that the presidents of the United States PRESIDENT JEFFERSON Davis 
and Confederate States were native-born Kentuckians, taking themselves ominously — 
the one South, the other North — in their boyhood days, to be schooled and trained to 
act their parts in the great drama of the " Irrepressible Conflict." 

that the former were generally in sympathy with the cause of the South, and 
the latter, with that of the Union. These facts placed the State in a preca- 
rious attitude. There were fifty-four companies of State Guards, the only 
available military force in the Commonwealth, and their officers were gen- 
erally men of Southern sympathies. On the 24th of June, General Buckner 
ordered six companies of these troops to Columbus, Kentucky, under Gen- 
eral Lloyd Tilghman, to protect neutrality there, threatened by the Confed- 
erate forces. Very soon after, General Tilghman passed over the line, after 
resigning, and cast his fortunes with the Confederate cause. He was suc- 
ceeded in command by Colonel Ben Hardin Helm. About the middle of 
July, at Camp Clay, opposite Newport, and at Camp Joe Holt, opposite 
Louisville, four regiments were being recruited from Kentucky, for the 
Federal service. At the same time, at Camp Boone, near Clarksville, Ten- 
nessee, the Kentucky volunteers to the Confederate ranks were making 
their way, and the like number of regiments, the Second, Third, Fourth, 
and Fifth Kentucky, were rapidly filling. These camps, on either side, 
served as temporary safety escapes to the irrepressible war elements. 

The first overt act of violation of the neutrality of Kentucky was soon 
to follow. General William Nelson, gathering a nucleus of Home Guards, 
established a recruiting station at Camp Dick Robinson, in Garrard county, 
and there rendezvoused companies of volunteers from Northern, Southern, 
and Central Kentucky, and organized them into regiments. It was unques- 
tionably a move sanctioned and aided by the Government at Washington. 
On the protest of Governor Magoffin, President Lincoln refusing to remove 
these intrusive and obnoxious forces, replied to Commissioners William A. 



6C4 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Dudley and Frank K. Hunt, that this force consisted exclusively of Ken- 
tuckians, in the vicinity of their own homes, and was raised at the " urgent 
solicitations of Kentuckians." The president added: " Taking all means to 
form a judgment, I do not believe it is the popular wish of Kentucky that 
this force shall be removed beyond her limits, and with this impression, I 
must respectfully decline to so remove it." 

The same day, August the 19th, the governor had dispatched George W. 
Johnson to Richmond, as a commissioner to the Confederate Government, 
with a like request that the neutrality of the State be not invaded from that 
direction. President Davis replied in most courteous and respectful terms : 
"In view of the history of the past, it is barely necessary to assure your 
excellency that this Government will continue to respect the neutrality of 
Kentucky, so long as her people will maintain it themselves. If the door 
be opened on the one side for the aggressions of one of the belligerent par- 
ties upon the other, it ought not to be shut to the assailed, when they seek 
to enter it for purposes of self-defense." 

The door had been thrown widely open by the bold act of General Nelson 
at Camp Dick Robinson; and no longer even the thin disguise of pretext 
could conceal that the authorities at Washington and the positive leaders of 
the Union cause, grown bold enough by the advantages they had won in 
the Fabian strategies of delay, were now concurring to throw off the mask 
of neutrality, and to lead the great mass of her people to a committal to 
the policy of coercion, under plea of loyalty and patriotic duty. The great 
majority of the people, who had been profoundly sincere and honest in the 
adoption of neutrality before, beheld now the misleading illusion vanish 
before their visions of hope. There had been to the date of this develop- 
ment, an able, positive, and powerful element of coercive Union men, and 
as able, positive, and powerful an element of secessionists, counteracting 
and balancing, each, the other, and thus enabling the sincere neutralists to 
hold in check the aggressive tendencies in either direction. The functions 
of neutrality ceased with the close of the first scene in the great war drama, 
and there was only left the choice of entering one of the encroaching and 
opposing armies, or to remain in the privacy of citizenship, subject to the 
vicissitudes of civil war. 

On the 2 1 St of July, the great battle of Manassas was fought on the soil 
of East Virginia, and the signal defeat, the total rout, and the wild, dis- 
orderly flight of the Union forces back upon Washington heralded through- 
out the land. If one party was elated, the other was correspondingly 
depressed ; but from their different standpoints and with different emotions, 
both were more intensely wrought up to hostile defiance and determined re- 
sistance. The war spirit, once aroused, is terribly infectious among a peo- 
ple, and, once in conflagration, they do not reck of danger or pause to 
reason. The adoption of the fallacy of secession as the sovereign right of 
a State, and the formal respect of its observance, had lost the border States. 



CAUSES THAT LED TO WAR. 605 

except Virginia, to the Southern Confederation, and mainly to the support 
of its cause. The sovereignty of the people, original and unquestioned, is 
greater than the measure of sovereignty they delegate to any government, 
and their right of revolution, for sufficient cause, is of universal concession. 
On plea of this right, our fathers justified their act of revolution and the 
war for independence before an approving world. Secession was but an- 
other style and form of asserting the right of revolution, but with restrictive 
and technical embarrassments that fatally forbade those measures in the out- 
set most vital to the life of the colossal rebellion. Had the people of the 
seceding States planted themselves on the right of revolution, as did the 
colonies, and, recognizing that necessity, safety, and independence were 
paramount to States' rights, marched their armies across Maryland, Ken- 
tucky, and Missouri, and established their military lines upon the front bor- 
ders of these, there is not a doubt that the soldier element would have 
gone into the ranks of the Confederate army as solidly in the three States 
mentioned as in Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas. This would have with- 
held West Virginia, lost one hundred and fifty thousand good soldiers 
to the Union cause, and added this number to the ranks of the Confederate 
army. It would have doubled the resources for army supplies and paralyzed 
the effective naval armaments of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It would 
have qualified the South to become invasive and aggressive. The military 
arm of the Confederate Government was led by as able generals and sus- 
tained by as brave soldiers as the world knew, but its controlling statesman- 
ship was beset and blinded by idealistic abstractions of State sovereignty, 
which it seemed incapable of subordinating to the most evident and crit- 
ical emergencies of war, even at the moment of providential opportunity. 
The foresight of statesmanship, the skill of military leadership, the bravery 
of willing soldiers — all were sacrificed to the Moloch of dodrinairism. Mil- 
itary necessity, in the presence and demand of such a destiny, can not afford 
to halt and worship at the temple of abstractionism. There never was an 
occasion more urgent for Napoleonic logistics and Napoleonic action ; the 
etiquette of abstractionism could not admit of it. 

A^ullification was the first extreme interpretation of the doctrines set forth 
in the resolutions of 1798; secession was the second, and the most exhaust- 
ive demonstration. It is a shallow, if not an absurd, view to treat secession 
as a cause of the gigantic and destructive civil war between the North and 
South sections. The conspiring events of a century connected with the in- 
stitution of slavery had brought about a divided sentiment, a conflict of 
interests and irreconcilable passions, which made war between the peoples 
of the two sections an impending and inevitable catastrophe. It is puerile 
and illogical to rail at secession as the ogre of the rebellion and strife. Se- 
cession had nothing to do with generating the causes of the war; it was pow- 
erless to arrest or avert its certain precipitation. It was but a method 
preferred by the discontented and aggrieved party to accomplish revolution 



6o6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of government. It is only a question we discuss whether it would not have 
been wiser and more practical for the Southern people to have based their 
action on the right of revolution, and thus given themselves the widest lati- 
tude for military and diplomatic strategies while justifying their action before 
the consenting judgriient of the civilized world. The experiment tried may 
make an end of secession as a doctrine of States' rights, but the right of 
revolution will ever live as a remedy to a wronged and oppressed people, 
and it would be but conjecture to say that, in the mutations of the affairs of 
governments and peoples, some States of the North section may not next be 
driven for refuge to its adoption as readily as those of the South to the more 
questionable remedy of secession. Who will next rebel? No one knows. 

As it became apparent that neutrality was at or near its end, the soldierly 
element, sympathizing with the Confederate cause, made their way out of 
the State to the recruiting camps just across the Tennessee line, to be en- 
rolled and formed into regiments. One regiment had previously been or- 
ganized, under Blanton Duncan, colonel, and incorporated in the army of 
East Virginia. The State Guards moved out almost bodily, with the State 
arms retained, following their commander. General Simon B. Buckner. The 
roads were thronged with the hurrying volunteers, eager to join their fort- 
unes with their Southern kinsmen, and in a few months it is estimated that 
well-nigh ten thousand Kentuckians had gone to the Confederacy. 

Those of decided Union tendencies as busily flocked to Camp Dick Rob- 
inson and other recruiting posts, which were now being multiplied over the 
State. The Confederate volunteers followed the fortunes of such distin- 
guished men as William Preston, Humphrey Marshall, S. B. Buckner, Roger 
W. Hanson, John S. Williams, Ben. Hardin Helm, John C. Breckinridge, 
George W. Johnson, John H. Morgan, and others of note. In the active 
lead of recruiting men for the suppression of the rebellion were William 
Nelson, Thomas L. Crittenden, Jerry T. Boyle, Speed Smith Fry, Frank L. 
Wolford, Thomas J. Wood, Walter C. Whittaker, J. J. Landrum, T. T. 
Garrard, John M. Harlan, John Mason Brown, and their commissioned 
comrades. The field of Kentucky having been abandoned to the military 
and civil jurisdiction of the Union authorities, now in open concert with the 
Federal Government, gave to the same an immense advantage. That equiv- 
ocal and meltable element, which but too often passively forms a large per- 
centage of the mass of the population of countries at war, and are liable to be 
operated on by the positive men of conviction on the one side or the other, 
were now at the entire disposal of the active Union authorities in the pro- 
cesses of recruiting. 

By appointment, General Robert Anderson was called to the command 
of the Union forces in Kentucky. On September the 25th, the Legislature 
passed an act directing the governor, by proclamation, to call out forty 
thousand Kentuckians, from one to three years, "to repel the invasion by 
armed forces from the Confederate States." The accretions to the Federal 



m 



GENERAL JOHNSTON COMMANDS THE WEST. 607 

army swelled to large proportions. General Grant having moved a body of 
several thousand Union troops to Belmont, opposite to and threatening Co- 
lumbus, Kentucky, about the ist of September, on the 3d of that month a 
body of Confederate forces, under General Leonidas Polk, occupied and 
fortified at Hickman and Columbus. On the 5th, the Federal army in force 
occupied Paducah and other points in Kentucky. On the 6th of Novem- 
ber, General Grant left his quarters at Cairo with a land and naval force, 
and landed some miles above Columbus, on the Kentucky shore, at the same 
time moving in the same direction a detachment from Paducah, as though 
designing an attack on Columbus. General Polk, observing the landing of 
a, considerable body of Federal troops on the Missouri shore, seven miles 
above Columbus, divined at once that the former moves were to divert, and 
that the real aim was to overwhelm and capture the small garrison near Bel- 
mont. He dispatched General Pillow with four regiments across the river 
to re-enforce the garrison. Very soon after his arrival. General Grant com- 
menced an assault, which was stubbornly resisted, and with varying fortune, 
for several hours. The Confederates, being outflanked, were forced back 
toward the river, when three regiments more were sent to the support of 
Pillow, and two others led into the action by General Polk. ^ The Federal 
army was soon driven back and forced upon a retreat, with very consider- 
able loss. They were followed for seven miles up the river, and compelled 
to seek safety in their boats, repeatedly under destructive fire until at a safe 
distance. The Confederate loss was six hundred and forty-one in killed, 
wounded, and missing; that of the Federals about one thousand, among 
whom were two hundred prisoners. 

2 On the loth of September, 1861, General Albert Sydney Johnston, 
having resigned his commission in the United States regular army in Cali- 
fornia, was assigned to the command of the department of the West, includ- 
ing Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and contiguous territory. On his arrival 
at Nashville, on a survey of the situation, he determined to advance his 
military line into Kentucky. By his orders, General Buckner occupied 
Bowling Green, on the i8th, with five thousand men. At the time. General 
Polk moved his main forces to Hickman and Columbus; General Zollicoffer, 
with four thousand troops, on the extreme right of the line, was sent to 
occupy the valley of the upper Cumberland as far as ^^'ayne county, or 
Cumberland ford. This formal invasion of Kentucky was claimed to be 
an act of self-defense rendered necessary by the action of the government 
of Kentucky, and by the evidences of intended movements of the forces of 
the United States already within the State. East of Columbus, Fort Henry, 
Fort Donelson, and Hopkinsville were garrisoned with small bodies of 
troops; and the territory between Columbus and Bowling Green was pos- 
sessed by moving detachments which caused the supposition that a large 
military force was near and threatening an advance. Cumberland Gap was 

I General Polk's Report. 2 Jefferson Davis' History, Vol. I., p. 406. 



6o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

fortified on the extreme right, to protect against any move on East Ten- • 
nessee. 'Ihus, General Johnston, when he took command at BowHng I 
Green, on the 28th of October, found himself entrenched there, with his 
right wing reaching to Cumberland mountains, and his left to Columbus, on 
the Mississippi. 

1 General Johnston afterward reports: "The enemy's force increased 
more rapidly than our own, so that by the last of November it ran up to 
fifty thousand, and continued to increase until it ran up to seventy- five 
thousand or more. My force was kept down by disease until it numbered 
about twenty-two thousand." He was fearfully deficient in arms and muni- 
tions of war, and, on the 19th of September, telegraphed President Davis: 
"Thirty thousand stand of arms are a necessity to my command. I beg 
you to order them procured and sent with dispatch." The response was 
that but only one thousand stand could be spared. During most of the 
autumn, one-half of this Western command were without arms. Later on, 
it was greatly strengthened by the addition of four thousand troops from 
Arkansas, under General Hardee, six regiments that had been recruited 
mainly from Kentucky, and twelve thousand men on requisition from Mis- 
sissippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas, making a total of some forty thousand 
composing the entire forces. 

On the 24th of September, General Anderson issued a proclamation that 
"no Kentuckian shall be arrested who remains at home attending to his 
business, and takes no active part against the authority of the General or 
State Government, or gives aid or assistance to our enemies." 

In the last week in September, within four days, William Preston, 
William E. Sims, George B. Hodge, George W. Johnson, John C. Breck- 
inridge, and other noted Kentuckians, with one thousand armed volunteers, 
passed through Prestonsburg, on their way to the Confederacy. James B. 
Clay, Charles S. Morehead, R. T. Durrett, and quite a number of well- 
known sympathizers with the South, were about the same time arrested, 
borne off, and shut up in prisons, some in Fort Lafayette, New York. 

2 On the 2 1st of October, General Zollicoffer, with five thousand men, 
advanced into Rockcastle county, and attacked the Seventh Kentucky Fed- 
eral infantry, under Colonel T. T. Garrard, on Wildcat mountain. With 
the advantage of the forest undergrowth, and the deep gorges and ravines of 
the country. Colonel Garrard held him in check, until re-enforcements of six 
Federal regiments and a battery of artillery came upon the ground. After 
a severe fight, the Confederates were driven off, with a loss of one hundred 
and thirty killed and wounded, that of the Federals being not over twenty- 
five. Frequent skirmish fights took place, at West Liberty, at Hazel Green, 
in Green, Gallatin, Butler, Whitley, McLean, Lyon, and other counties, 
with not very important results to either side. At Ivy mountain, in Pike 

1 Davis' Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, Vol. I., p. 407. 4\'l 

2 Collins' Annals of Kentucky. W 



SORROW THROUGHOUT THE LAND. 609 

county, a regiment of indifferently-armed troops, under General John S. 
AVilliams, was engaged in a spirited contest of an hour, with three regi- 
ments, a battalion, and a battery of artillery, under General Nelson, and 
compelled to retreat before the superior numbers, with some loss. 

The Commonwealth was now a seething cauldron of active animosities, 
of unbridled license and violence, and of both petty and flagrant outrages 
on the persons and property of private citizens, as well as of those who, by 
overt speech or act, had avowed their hostility. It is not the province or 
privilege of the historian, however his sympathies and prejudices may in- 
cline, to indulge the charity that would conceal the motives of men, by 
burying their actions in the tomb of silence, that only the better side of 
humanity may appear. The functions of history require the hand of the 
faithful chronicler, if it must ever become "philosophy teaching by ex- 
ample." The distresses and horrors of civil war were widespread over the 
land, like the Upas shadows of wild chaos and disorder; while the tempest 
roar and beating waves of passionate fury but partially drowned the piteous 
wails and anguish that went up from broken hearts and desolate homes. 
Kentucky suffered her measure of retributive and penitential sorrows for 
the partial, and not entirely guiltless, part she played in the tragedy of war 
begun; yet her sorrow and sufferings were not to be compared with those 
that fell upon Virginia, Missouri, and some other of her sister Common- 
wealths, where the lawlessness of military hcense met no restraint from the 
assertion of civil authority, and where the habitations of men, over great 
areas of country, w'ere converted again into resorts for wild beasts and birds 
of the wilderness. 

Truly says Shaler : ^ " A great sorrow fell upon the land. It w^as common 
enough to see strong men weeping for the woe that no hand could avert 
from coming upon their beloved State. One of the most painful features 
was the sundering of households that now took place. When the division 
came, very often the father went one way, the sons another. Usually the 
parting lines in civil war are drawn by neighborhoods and clans, but in 
this battle the line of separation went through all associations. Families, 
churches, friendships, business relations, seemed to have no influence what- 
ever on the way men went. . It was the most singular instance of independent 
mindedness that is recorded in history. There was an absolute forgetfulness 
of the moneyed value of the slave, as there was an absence of desire to 
secure other property. There was no drifting out of capital, of property, or 
of population, to escape the perils of strife, as usual in the beginnings of 
civil wars, and this shows the overwhelming intensity of the moral shock 
brought upon the consciousness of the people by the swift and appalling 
changes of the times. 

The difficulty of maintaining the active authority of the civil law in this 
period of conflict was made the greater by the action of the Home Guards, 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealths, pp. 254-6. 

39 



6lO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

a force that could not be kept in proper control. These were a local sort of 
military police, organized and armed at the same time with the State Guards, 
but maintained at home around the towns and neighborhood centers. While 
many men of character and integrity were associated with these, and ren- 
dered good service in restraining violence, yet they offered the tempting 
opportunity of gathering into their organizations the shiftless, prowling, and 
lawless element which, more or less, infest every community, at the expense 
of its peace and good name. The unusual compensation, the subordination 
of civil authority to a dispensation of military license, and the free and easy 
service, with little risk or sacrifice, made for them a long holiday of each 
year of their visitation upon the country. Too frequently, for the honor 
and good repute of our civilization, officers and privates availed themselves 
of this armed license to perpetrate needless and barbarous murders, to 
spoliate upon and appropriate or destroy property, to arrest and imprison 
men, and to injure, terrify, and annoy, with ruthless and cruel inhumanity. 
And these wrongs were most frequently done to neighbors and old acquaint- 
ances. The causes were variously traceable to partisan or personal malice, 
to covetous cupidity, or to the wantonness of drunken or passionate brutality. 
These phases and experiences of depravity are not phenomenal with Ken- 
tucky, nor were they a peculiar outgrowth of one cause militant, or the 
other. We shall see that from the ranks of the splendid manhood of the 
Confederate army there came out, to prowl and prey upon communities, 
in defiance of all restraints of civilized warfare, marauding bands of outlaws, 
who perpetrated murders, robberies, arsons, and outrages, and, under the 
abuse of Confederate authority, as wantonly as did the worse element of 
the other side. These are but few of the experiences invariably incident to 
civil war; and we picture them but feebly to reality, that the pages of his- 
tory, from the pen of a present witness, may testify to another generation the 
calamities of such a war, which it would be ever better bo avert by pacific 
and rational compromise, if men could only pause to consider in the midst 
of resentments. A very few vicious and violent men, in any community or 
organization, may serve to stigmatize the good order and good name of the 
whole. 

In the first periods, the chief commandants sought to restrain all military 
outlawry. October the 7th, General Anderson issued Order No. 5, in ref- 
erence to the conduct of Home Guards arresting and carrying off peaceful 
citizens, and directs a ' ' discontinuance of these ill-timed and unlawful arrests. " 
On his resignation and succession by General Sherman, soon after, the latter 
announced that "the removal of prisoners (except spies and prisoners of 
war) from the State, without trial by the legal tribunals, does not meet my ap- 
proval." General Nelson, a man of hasty and furious passions, had recently 
had arrested, and sent to be imprisoned in Fort Lafayette, R. H. Stanton, 
W. T. Casto, Isaac Nelson, B. F. Thomas, and George Forrester, of 
Maysville. In the United States Court, at Frankfort, Judge Bland Ballard 



BRECKINRIDGE EXPELLED FROM THE SENATE. 6n 

presiding, there were found indictments for treason, on the 6th of Novem- 
ber, against thirty-two notable citizens who had joined the Confederate 
arms, among whom were John C. Breckinridge, James S. Chrisman, Ben 
Desha, John M. EUiott, Humphrey Marshall, Ben J. Monroe, Phil B. 
Thompson, and John M. Rice. In ten days after, General Breckinridge 
assumed command of the First Kentucky brigade, Confederate States army. 
On December 2d, the United States Senate formally 

^'■Resolved, That the traitor, John C. Breckinridge, be expelled." 

1 On the 1 8th of November, the States' Rights party met, by delegates, 
at Russellville, Kentucky, and organized a provisional government, under 
which the State went through the forms of admission into the Confeder- 
acy, on December loth, and was accorded the right of representation. 
There were chosen, for governor, George W. Johnson ; for secretary of 
state, R. McKee, and assistant, O. F. Payne; for treasurer, John Burnam; 
auditor, J. Pillsbury. The following were sent as delegates to the Con- 
gress, at Richmond, at an election on the 22d of January: W. B. Machen, 
J. W. Crockett, H. E. Reed, G. W. Ewing, J. S. Chrisman, T. L. Burnett, 
H. W. Bruce, George B. Hodge, E. N. Bruce, J. W. Moore, R. J. Breck- 
inridge, Jr., and John M. Elliott. In the Kentucky Provisional Council, 
Henry C. Burnett and William E. Simms were elected senators to the same 
Congress. 

In the early autumn, it was obvious that the organization of the State 
troops for service in the Federal army had become pressingly important. 
There was some difficulty in the way of this, from the fact that Governor 
Magoffin and his cabinet were known to be in sympathy with the Southern 
cause. It is a remarkable fact that the governor should have been able to 
maintain himself in office through eighteen months of this strife of elements, 
by strictly adhering to the letter and forms of the constitution and laws. 
He would veto every obnoxious bill passed in behalf of the Union cause, 
or injurious to the other side ; but if the same was passed over his veto, he 
would faithfully execute it to the letter. This long forbearance and reli- 
ance on constitutional rights, under the severest chafing and provocations 
on both sides, evinced a spirit of profound regard for the law. However, 
Adjutant-General Brown having resigned about this time, a serious obstruc- 
tion was removed. John W. Finnell, in full Union sympathy, was appointed 
in his stead, and by his superior organizing ability and unwearying energy, 
gave great impetus and success to the arming, equipping, and alignment 
of the Kentucky volunteers. It was not long before twenty regiments 
of these were fully prepared and added to the Federal army. During the 
month of December, a total of sixty-two regiments were paid off within 
the State, besides the troops stationed convenient to the border. 

In December, a sharp and sanguinary battle was fought at Munfordville, 
between a body of Texas cavalry and a regiment or two of Federal infantry, 

I Thompson's First Kentucky Brigade, p. 46. 



6l2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

resulting in the defeat of the former, with over eighty killed and wounded. 
The loss of the latter was thirty. About the same time, General Forrest 
defeated a small force of Federals in McLean county, with some loss, but 
no decisive consequence, like numberless similar combats which were but 
the lesser incidents of the war, and many of which are not of record. 

1 On the loth of January, 1862, General James A. Garfield, having 
crossed the Ohio river with a division of several regiments, and marched 
up the valley of Big Sandy, engaged the forces of General Humphrey Mar- 
shall, near Prestonburg, in Floyd county. The object was, most probably, 
a diversion or reconnoissance, as the firing was a mere skirmish at long 
range, with trifling loss on either side. 

The most serious battle on Kentucky soil, to that date, was at Mill Spring, 
in Pulaski county. General George B. Crittenden, commanding the 
extreme right of the Confederate line, left his entrenched camp at Beech 
Grove, on the north bank of Cumberland river, on the 19th of January^ 
with his forces of five thousand infantry and one battery of six pieces, just 
after midnight. He advanced ten miles to meet the advancing Federal 
army under General George H. Thomas, composed of not so large a number 
of men, of whom were Colonel Fry's Fourth Kentucky infantry and Colonel 
Wolford's cavalry, two out of the five regiments. At six o'clock the firing 
began, and in half an hour the battle raged furiously. Information received 
by Crittenden of an aggressive move in force on his position, led him to 
take the initiative, in the hope of beating his enemy in detail. General 
ZoUicoffer, second in command, led the attack ; and for nearly four hours 
the fighting continued with doubtful result. 2 About this time, General 
ZoUicoffer was killed by a pistol-shot at the hands of Colonel Fry, throwing 
the Confederate ranks into some disorder. The Federals were just then re- 
enforced by Colonel William Hoskins, at the head of the Twelfth Kentucky, 
and some other supports, who succeeded in making a flank movement, 
and pouring in a destructive fire. Other re-enforcements under Colonel 
John M. Harlan coming up and swelling the army of General Thomas to 
seven thousand men, the Confederates were driven back upon their camp, 
and closely invested for a renewal of the assault the next morning. Under 
cover of a heavy cannonading during the night, General Crittenden crossed 
his troops over the river, and safely retreated into Tennessee, abandoning 
ten pieces of artillery, seven hundred old muskets, one hundred and sixiy 
wagons, twelve hundred horses and a quantity of ammunition and stores — 
quite a serious loss to the Southern army. The killed and wounded on each 
aide were between three and four hundred. 

2 The forces had obviously been organizing and marshaling during the 
two months previous for the contest which must soon be waged for the 

1 Account of Colonel Henry Giltner, an officer present. 

2 Collins' Ann.-i'is of Kentucky. 

3 General William Farrar (" Baldy ") Smith, in Magazine of Amtrican Histoy, October, 1885 
also oflficial dispatches of Generals Buell, Halleck, McClellan, and secretary of war. 



IJ 



GENERAL HALLECK's TIMIDITY. 613 

supremacy and occiipancy of Kentucky by the one combatant or the other. 
Under General Buell, in early December, 1861, there were seventy regi- 
ments of infantry, three of cavalry, and seven batteries of artillery in Ken- 
tucky, making a total effective army of sixty thousand soldiers. General 
Grant had at Cairo, at the same time, 16,571, and General C. F. Smith, 
6,781 at Paducah. General Halieck's monthly report showed that he had 
in the closing month of the year ninety-one thousand soldiers under his com- 
mand in the Missouri department, which included those at Cairo and Padu- 
cah held for ready transport by water against Columbus or the forts on the 
Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. General Sherman, after succeeding to 
the command of the Kentucky, or Ohio river, department, on October 14th, 
remained until November 13th, when he was transferred to the Missouri 
department. General Buell was then appointed to the command thus 
vacated. The commander-in-chief of the United States army, General 
George B. McClellan, in dispatches sent in November, had defined the juris- 
dictions to Buell: "That portion of Kentucky west of the Cumberland 
river is, by position, so closely related to Illinois and Missouri that it has 
seemed best to attach it to Missouri." General Sherman, after a full sur- 
vey of the field covered by the two commands, and menaced by the com- 
mand of the Confederate general, Johnston, gloomily reported to the war 
department at Washington that it would require not less than two hundred 
thousand well-armed and equipped troops to resist or overcome the military 
forces of the Confederates and the aid and comfort to the same which the 
sympathizing population were ready to give. General Halleck reflected the 
same discouraging view in his dispatches, and indulged them in his military 
measures to an extent that seemed to confuse his mind and to paralyze for 
the time the important arm of the service placed at his disposal. He seemed 
to exaggerate the proportions of the obstacles to be overcome, and to mani- 
fest a timidity and hesitation unequal to the demands of a first great emer- 
gency. ^ As our authorities say, confirmed by official reports and dispatches, 
that confronting Halieck's large army "the whole organized Confederate 
force against which he was operating in Missouri did not amount to over 
tivetity thousand shoeless and half-anned men. The improvised naval arma- 
ments and transporting fleets on the connecting waters of the Mississippi, 
Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers gave an advantage for a concen- 
trated attack on Columbus, Fort Donelson, or Fort Henry, while these 
points must be severally protected at all times by the divided Confederates 
in defense." 

2 At this time. Major Munford reported to the Confederate Congress that 
the effective force at Bowling Green was 12,500 and at Columbus and in- 
tervening points 20,899, which, with General Crittenden's command at 
Cumberland Ford and smaller detachments, approximated a total of 40,000. 

1 General Baldy Smith, Magazine of Atnerican History for October, i8?5. Official Reports. 

2 General Baldy Smith, Magazine of American Hiilory, October, 1884. Official Reports. 



6l4 HISTORY OF KENTUCK\. 

"An abstract of return from Johnston's entire command, December 12th, 
including Arkansas and East Tennessee, and also 12,000 raw and badly- 
armed volunteers in camp in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennes- 
see, gives 77,908 of all arms." This, of course, embraced the twenty thou- 
sand badly-organized and armed volunteers confronting Halleck's army 
in Missouri. General Buell, in concert with General McClellan, was mar- 
shaling and disposing his forces for an advance against the Confederates in 
Kentucky, for which purpose the co-operation and concert of General Hal- 
leek was indispensable. But the latter seemed not yet to have compre- 
hended or mastered the situation. He dispatched to McClellan : "This, 
general, is no army, but rather a military mob. You indicate an intention 
to withdraw a portion of troops from Missouri. I assure you this can not 
be done with safety. It seems to me madness. The 'On to Richmond' 
poHcy here will produce another Bull Run disaster." It was found neces- 
sary to restrict Halleck to the limits of Missouri, and to place the troops at 
Cairo and Paducah at the disposal of Buell. The latter wrote to the adju- 
tant-general, on the 23d, that he had seventy thousand men in his command, 
fifty-seven thousand for campaign duty. A week after, he dispatched to 
McClellan : " I intend a column of twelve thousand men, with three batter- 
ies, for East Tennessee. ^ * * It is my conviction that all the force that 
can possibly be collected should be brought to bear on that point, of which 
Columbus and Bowling Green may be said to be the flanks. The center, 
that is, the Cumberland and Tennessee where the railroad crosses them, is 
710W the most vnhier able point. ''^ 

Every effort of human agency and power had been put forth by the Con- 
federate commander to recruit the strength of his long military line from 
Cumberland Gap, by Bowling Green and Columbus, far into Arkansas and 
Missouri, a distance of about four hundred miles. Requisitions were made 
for thirty thousand volunteers for a brief time, from the Southwest States. 
Many came forward, but the destitution of arms and munitions was such 
that barely one-half were serviceable. Thousands were armed only with 
old flint-lock muskets, hunting-rifles, or shot-guns, and many not at all. 
General Johnston apprehended a main attack in force on Bowling Green, 
but realized the weakness of the forts on the Cumberland and Tennessee, 
and the great danger of Nashville from the breaking of his line there. 
Re-enforced by Hardee, with four thousand men from Arkansas, by five 
thousand from Columbus, and some smaller bodies, his forces at Bowlirg 
Green were swelled early in January to nearly twenty-three thousand. On 
the 5th, the brigades of Floyd and Maney arrived from West Virginia, and 
were united with the divisions of Generals Buckner and Pillow, and sent 
forward for the defense of Fort Donelson. By a messenger to Richmond, 
he urged the forwarding of more men, saying, " I do not ask that my force 
shall be made equal to that of the enemy, but, if possible, it should be 
raised to fifty thousand men." 



m 



ENGAGEMENTS AT FORT DONELSON, 



615 



The defeat of General Crittenden on the extreme right, on January 
19th, was a severe blow to the Confederate arms, and threatened a flank in 
that direction. On the 6th of February, the Federal plan was fully uncov- 
ered by the assault upon, and capture of, Fort Henry, on the Tennessee 
river, after a terrific bombardment by seven gunboats, with some fifteen 
thousand troops under General Grant, borne up on transports. General 
Tilghman, in command, sent off thirty-five hundred troops in retreat, before 
surrendering the fort and the garrison of seventy men. The loss in the 
fort was but fifteen men, killed and wounded ; but the barrier to an entrance 
into Tennessee was broken, and the rear of the Confederate army seriously 
imperiled. It was a second catastrophe. 

1 The final third was soon to follow. In less than one week. General 
Grant, in command of forty-one regiments of infantry, four of cavalry, and 
ten batteries of artillery, supported by six gunboats, four of which were 
iron-clad, passed up the Cumberland river to Fort Donelson, near the Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee line. Fifteen thousand Confederate troops, under 
Generals Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner, in the order of their rank, re-enforced 
the garrison. The Second Kentucky infantry, Roger W. Hanson, colonel; 
the Eighth, under Colonel H. B. Lyon, and Graves' battery, were ofBuck- 
ner's command. Through the 13th to the i6th day, the fighting was obstinate 
and sanguinary. On the night of the 13th, a midwinter storm of rain and 
sleet deluged the trenches, and exposed the half-sheltered troops to its pitiless 
fury, and to the intensest cold. The -^^ 

soldiers of both armies suffered terribly 
for three days and nights from this 
interlude of warring weather; of the 
one army less, because better clothed 
and protected. On the 13th, General 
Grant led his forces, thirty thousand 
strong, to a general assault, sustained 
by his heavy artillery, while the gun- 
boats poured in a continuous fire from 
cannon and mortar upon the fortress. 
After desperate and sanguinary fight- 
ing for hours, the Federal army was 
repulsed and driven back. On the 
14th, the gunboats were compelled to 
withdraw from the range of the fort, 
with two disabled and all more or less crippled. On the 15th, in a sortie 
made for the escape of the garrison, the battle was renewed with greater 
fury than ever, and the carnage very heavy. Under cover of Friday night, 
Generals Floyd and Pillow escaped with but a few of their commands, 
leaving General Buckner with the command of the army. On the i6th, 

I Collins' Annals of Kentucky ; Thompson's First Kentucky Brigade; Official Reports. 



'fg/. 




GENERAL SIMON B, BUCKNER. 



6l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the latter, after vainly seeking an armistice, surrendered to General Grant 
not far from twelve thousand prisoners, among whom were the Kentucky 
troops. They were sent to Camp Morton, Indiana, and held six months 
before exchange. 

The Kentucky troops engaged on the Federal side were the Seventeenth 
regiment, under Colonel John H. McHenry, and the Twenty-fifth, under 
Colonel James M. Shackelford. On both sides, the Kentucky troops bore 
themselves with noted gallantry. The Federal loss was over twenty-four 
hundred, mostly killed and wounded ; that of the Confederates, fourteen 
hundred and seventy, besides the prisoners surrendered. 

Nashville now lay open to easy approach of the Federal army, by land 
and river. A solid line of one hundred and fourteen thousand troops and 
one hundred and twenty-six pieces of artillery was moved southward by 
General Buell. On the 25th, they entered Nashville. On the 14th, Bowl- 
ing Green had been evacuated ; and on the 27th, the stronghold of Columbus 
was abandoned to the advancing and victorious armaments. The army of 
General Albert Sydney Johnston retreated through the midwinter storm 
of rain and ice, before described, in advance of the Federals, to Nashville, 
and from thence to Murfreesboro, where he was joined by the forces of 
General George B. Crittenden, The army was reorganized on the 23d 
of February, comprising three divisions, under Generals Hardee, Critten- 
den and Pillow. The brigade of General John C. Breckinridge included 
the Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth Kentucky infantry, Ben Hardin Helm's 
First Kentucky cavalry, John H. Morgan's squadron, and the light batteries 
of Byrne and Cobb. Southward the march was continued to Decatur, where 
the Tennessee river was crossed. The troops fell back to Burnsville, Mis- 
sissippi, where the tents were pitched for camping. The army was much 
strengthened by the addition of the forces of General Beauregard, who 
became second in command. 

Adjutant-General Finnell, on the i8th, reported the organization and 
officers of twenty-eight regiments of 24,026 infantry, six regiments of 4,979 
cavalry, and two batteries of 198 men — 29,203 effective volunteers in all, 
equipped for the Union service, in Kentucky. 

1 " On the 6th of March, President Lincoln sent in to Congress a special 
message, recommending, with cogent argument, the enactment of the fol- 
lowing : 

" Resolved, That the United Slates ought to co-operate with any State 
which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State 
pecuniary aid, to be used in its discretion, to compensate for losses or incon- 
veniences from such change of system." 

The resolution passed both houses by a vote of three to one. Both Ken- 
tucky senators, Lazarus W. Powell and Garrett Davis, the latter Union, 
voted against it, as did the border State members, mainly. It was not dif- 



I Collins' Annals of Kentucky. 



I 



i BATTLE OF PITTSBURGH LANDING. 617 

^ ficult to determine at this time that one result of the war must be the 
certain extermination of the peculiar institution, and the loss of the prop- 

> erty value in slaves. Yet not a responsible statesman South dared to open 
his eyes and behold the fact in its stupendous reality, prophesy it to his 
people, and bid them accept and prepare for the inevitable. Its accept- 
ance then by Kentucky would have been worth one hundred millions of 

: dollars to the slave owning citizens. The Southern rights men would 
have scorned the barter of such a compromise ; those fighting on the 
Union side pledged that slavery should be intact, because the powers at 
Washington had pledged them the same, and they believed and trusted in 
that which was impossible. It is a phenomenal part of the war experience 
that, in no instance of several overtures made or suggested, did any repre- 
sentative body of the Southern people. Union or Secession, seriously 
consider the idea of compromise on the basis of a surrender of slavery, 
with compensation for the loss of property in the slave. There was an 
uncompromising and exalted pride in this that asserted itself over all con- 
siderations of wreck and ruin and poverty, the calamities of which were 
preferred to the humiliation of the other alternative. 

Sunday morning, April 6, 1862, was serene and beautiful beneath a 
cloudless sky, near the border line of Mississippi and Tennessee. General 
Grant's army, forty thousand strong, was drawn up in order of battle near 
Pittsburgh Landing, with his fleet of gunboats and transports lying off in 
Tennessee river. General Buell was twenty-five miles in his rear, with 
thirty thousand men, pushing forward to form a junction. The Confederate 
commander divined the importance of crushing the two armies in detail. 
He strove hard to attack on the 5th ; but in wielding large and complex 
bodies of men, somebody is always laggard, or something important left 
undone. He was delayed until the 6th. On that morning, before the 
camps had all breakfasted, the roar of cannon from the front of Hardee's 
corps, of fifteen thousand men, signaled the attack upon the Northern 
army. Though the question has been disputed, the best authorities assure 
us that it was a surprise attack. The Federals, driven precipitately back 
for a little while, reformed under cover of the forest and undergrowth, and 
recovered in part the lost advantage. Bragg's corps intermingled with 
Hardee's, and Polk sent one brigade each to the right and left of Bragg, 
leading his remaining two brigades against the center. 

^The " reserve corps," of seven thousand, in three brigades, under com- 
mand of General Breckinridge, was brought up close in the rear of Polk's 
position, and held for supporting orders. 

The brigade, composed mainly of Kentucky troops, was under command 
of Colonel Robert P. Trabue, and was made up of Colonel Ben Anderson's 
Third Kentucky, Colonel Hyne's Fourth Kentucky, Colonel Joseph H. 
Lewis' Sixth Kentucky, Colonel Thomas H. Hunt's Ninth Kentucky, the 

I Thompson's First Kentucky Brigade, p. 90; Colonel Trabue's official report. 



6i8 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Fourth Alabama battalion, the Thh ty-first Alabama regiment, Crew's Ten- 
nessee battalion, Byrne's and Cobb's two batteries, and Captain John H. 
Morgan's squadron of horse, in all about twenty-six hundred men. The 
two brigades of Bowen and Statham, of troops from other States, made up 
the remainder of the reserve corps. By order of General Breckinridge, 
Colonel Trabue formed his brigade in line of battle, in Polk's rear, and 
advanced, filing on the left, upon the Federal front. From this time until the 
army of General Grant was driven in disorderly defeat behind the banks of 
the river, and under cover of the gunboats, this brigade was almost continu- 
ously in the hottest and most destructive fire between the two armies. On 
the first advance of Colonel Trabue, General Breckinridge received orders 
to march, with Bowen's and Statham's brigades, to a position far to the right 
of the one held, and thus separated from Colonel Trabue for another part 
of the field. This command was held in reserve until two o'clock. Both 
wings of the Federal army had been broken and routed, but the center yet 
held its ground. ^ General Breckinridge now received orders to break the 
Federal line at the center. Moving by the left flank until opposite the point 
of attack, Bowen's brigade on the left, and Statham's on the right, the line 

General Albert Sydney John- 
ston was born at Washington, Mason 
county, Kentucky, February 2, 1802; 
was educated at Transylvania, and 
graduated at West Point. Served 
with distinction in the regular army, 
in the Black Hawk war ; resigned in 
1835, to enter the cause of Texan in- 
dependence ; in l837» became com- 
mander-in-chief of her forces; and 
secretary of war for the Texas repub- 
lic, in 1839. In 1846, entered into 
the Mexican war, as colonel of First 
Texas infantry, and distinguished 
himself at Monterey ; served on the 
Texas frontier some years ; led the 
expedition against Utah, and ap- 
pointed to command in California. 
In 1861, he resigned, and entered the 
service of the Confederacy, and was 
put in the responsible command as- 
signed him, on account of the high 
estimate of his military talents, by 
President Davis. General Johnston was undoubtedly possessed of rare military capac- 
ity, as shown in the marvelous skill and energy with which he brought order out of 
chaos, retrieved disaster, and crowned a difficult campaign with brilliant victory, just 
as he sealed his record with his life's blood on the fated field of Shiloh. Few men died 
more lamented and more inopportune, in the midst of the great sectional strife. 
I General George B. Hodge's Official Report, as Staff Officer. 




GENERAL ALBERT SYDNEY JOHNSTON. 




DEATH OF ALBERT SYDNEY JOHNSTON. 619 

was formed and the attack made. The lines of the opposing forces were a 
sheet of flame, and men were falling by the hundreds. General Breckin- 
ridge determined to make a charge. Just as all was ready, the commander- 
in-chief. General Johnston, rode up, and learning the movement, determined 
to join in it. Conspicuous with his commanding person in full uniform, he 
awaited the signal. Together, generals, officers, and privates dashed for- 
ward at double-quick, upon the Federal front, facing a deadly fire of cannon 
and musketry. But the impetuous charge won the last position held, and 
the strong center shared the fate of the two wings. This victory was at a 
probably fatal cost. General Albert Sydney Johnston here received a wound 
that laid him upon the field among the slain. 

About the mid afternoon. Colonel Trabue's brigade rejoined the other 
two brigades under Breckinridge, having fought their way through on the 
left wing ; and the reserve corps stood for over one hour in the midst of 
victorious comrades, behind the bluffs of Pittsburgh Landing, and under the 
bombardment of the gunboats, with the routed and disorderly remains of 
Grant's army in the valley between, and almost at their feet. Had General 
Johnston lived, the three hours remaining would probably have served for 
the capture of the whole, the defeat of Buell, and a triumphant return 
march to the Ohio river. 

General Beauregard succeeded to the chief command, but the victorious 
army seemed without a head for the remainder of the day. ^In a confer- 
ence of commanders the day before, Beauregard had advised against the 
attack, and on the next morning repeated the advice. After the death 
of the chief, he was found lying much indisposed in his quarters near 
Shiloh church, by General Harris, of Tennessee. The order had already 
been given for the final advance in force, for the capture of the defeated 
army, when the order came from General Beauregard, yet at his head- 
quarters, directing the troops to be withdrawn and placed in camp for the 
night. 

We have, of course, aimed to follow the actions of the Kentucky troops 
in this account of the operations, and will continue to do so. General 
Buell says: "Of the army of not less than forty-one thousand five hun- 
dred effective men, which Grant had on the west bank of the Tennessee 
river, not more than five thousand were in ranks and available on the bat- 
tle-field at uightfall. The rest were killed, wounded, captured, or scattered 
in hopeless confusion for miles along the bank of the river." By the 
extraordinary march of Buell's army, of twenty-five miles, thirty thousand 
re-enforcements were added, and the broken and disordered ranks reformed, 
for an attack on the part of the Federal army, of over fifty thousand men, 
on the next day. The energy and skill of General Buell met an emer- 
gency, overcame disaster, and delivered successful battle, with results as 

I General Bragg on Shiloh ; Davis' History, Vol. II., pp. 60-7; General Gilmer, Chief Engineer 
Confederate States Army, to Colonel W.P.Johnson; General Hardee's report ; Federal official reports. 



620 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

fortunate for the Federal arms, as the failure of General Beauregard, on 
the day before, had been calamitous to the cause of the South. 

1 Mainly with Buell's army, there were of Kentucky troops the First, 
Second, and Third cavalry, and the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, 
Eleventh, Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Twentieth, Twenty-third, Twenty- 
fourth, and Twenty-sixth infantry, sixteen regiments of about twelve thou- 
sand men. Early on the morning of Monday, the 7th, the Confederate 
lines were assailed with superior numbers ; and with brave assault and resist, 
ance of battle throughout the day, both armies gallantly braving the issues 
of life and death, the field of battle was reoccupied by the Union army 
at sunset of that day. Among the notable incidents of the strife. Gov- 
ernor George W. Johnson, having his horse killed under him, seized a 
musket, and joined in the thickest of the fight, as a private, in the company 
of Captain Ben Monroe, and fell mortally wounded, in the front of battle. 
It was a rare coincidence that Kentucky's two greatest Johnsons, then her 
chiefest civil and military representatives on the Southern side, should each 
have yielded up his life while performing exceptional deeds of heroic service 
on the same field of Shiloh. 

On either side, the Kentucky troops fought with a valor worthy of their 
fame. The loss of the Confederate army in the conflicts of the two days 
was 10,699, i'^ killed, wounded, and prisoners; of the Union army, 13,573 ; 
twenty-five per cent, of the former, twenty per cent, of the latter. The 
loss of the Kentucky troops on the Confederate side was 680 ; of the same 
on the Federal side, over eight hundred. 

It would be beyond our province to follow with narrative of details 
the First Kentucky brigade to Corinth, through the first siege of Vicks- 
burg, the battle of Baton Rouge, and the return to Murfreesboro, where 
next we may meet, and renew acquaintance ; and with like regard, we ■ 
must leave to other history, the marches and battles of the Kentucky 
Federal regiments, whose military fortunes were cast with the armies in 
the same field. 

In the autumn of 1861 and after, there was unconsciously in training 
the improvised nucleus of an arm of service which was destined to become, 
for its numbers, one of the most active, original, and potential produced in 
the annals of war. 2 Qn announcement of the order by the authorities in 
Kentucky to disarm the State Guards, Captain John H. Morgan, in com- 
mand of the "Lexington Rifles," secretly loaded the arms of his company 
into wagons, on the night of September 20th, gathered around him fifty 
faithful adherents, and moved out through the country to join the fortunes 
of the army of General Johnston around Bowling Green, falling in with 
Captain J. C. Wickliffe's company, from Nelson county, on the way. On 
the 30th, they were welcomed by the Confederate forces holding the coun- 

1 Collins' Annals of Kentucky. 

2 Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, p. 89. 



I 



OPERATIONS OF MORGAN S CAVALRY. 



621 



try on the south side of Green river, from Woodsor.ville to Bowling Green, 
and under the command of General Buckner. An experience at Buena 
Vista in the Mexican war and years of driUing of an amateur company had 
given to Morgan's intuitive military talent an education that proved of 
immense advantage in the after development. In this field he at once began 
active operations. Instead of confining himself to mere picket duty, as the 
other cavalry had done, he began with his unfilled company those frequent 
scouts and excursions in front, on the flanks, and sometimes in the rear of 
the Federal advance, that enabled him to acquaint himself with and report 
the numbers, the positions, and the movements of the enemy from day to 
day. These " excursions" were un- 
dertaken three or four times every 
week, and usually occupied about 
twenty-four hours each. The scout- 
ing party would set out at or a little 
before dark, and cover the move- 
ment for the first twelve hours under 
the shadows of the night. Morgan 
at the first declared that cavalry 
could be employed to far better 
advantage if kept well out upon the 
front or flanks of the army to which 
it belongs, and close upon the enemy, 
than by exacting of it the sort of 
duty that can as well be performed 
by infantry. On the return of day, 
the scouting party would take a position on the line of retreat at a conven- 
ient but safe distance from the enemy, rest and refresh men and horses, 
observe closely the positions and movements in the hostile lines, and, as 
the day declined and all seemed quiet, return to camp. Sometimes fifty 
miles, and, exceptionally, over sixty miles, would be made in twenty 
hours. Often skirmishes with the pickets and outposts of the enemy 
^)ccurred, and with occasional killed, wounded, and prisoners, on the scale 
of scouting. Morgan's company was joined by that of Captain Thomas 
Allen's, of Shelbyville, and Captain James Bowles, of Glasgow, and thus 
was made up "Morgan's squadron." In gathering in horses, cattle, and 
army supplies, in disconcerting and annoying the enemy, and in advising 
and protecting the main body of tke Confederate army, their services had 
already become invaluable. The bridge over Nolin creek was burned in 
front of the advancing Federal army, causing serious delay and trouble. 
In :wenty hours he rode into Lebanon, Kentucky, burned the enemy's 
stores, and brought off a number of prisoners, and did many other acts to 
disconcert and baffle the foe. 

In this school of training began the history of the famous " Morgan's 




GENERAL JOHN HUNT MORGAN. 



022 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Cavalry,'"' afterward to become an important military factor ni the civil war. 
The squadron was swept along with the cuirent of events to Shiloh, in which 
battle it participated as part of General Breckinridge's reserve corps. From 
this field the squadron, on detached service, made its way, with varying 
incidents and adventure, back to Middle Tennessee, and as far as Cave City, 
Kentucky, returning southward once more. The details of the romantic 
career of these bold riders and their daring chieftain until their reorganiza- 
tion at Chattanooga may be read with thrilling interest in Duke's "History 
of Morgan's Cavalry." We must confine our narrative to the main events 
in Kentucky. In all the important operations of this command, in which 
he became the second in authority, the skill and energy of Colonel Basil W. 
Duke lent an indispensable service of aid to Morgan which contributed very 
largely to the marvelous accomplishments of the squadron. Indeed, the 
sagacity of Morgan in the officering, equipping, and make-up of his 
command was next to his tact and generalship in the field. When the 
reorganized force left Chattanooga, a few days after, for Kentucky, no 
better men could have been placed in supporting command than Major 
G. W. Morgan and Captains Richard M. Gano, Jacob Cassel, John Allen, 
James Bowles, John B. Castleman, John Hutchison, Thomas B. Webber, 
and McFarland. 

The command of Morgan re-enforced by Colonel Hunt's rangers and 
Gano's Texans, eight hundred and seventy-six strong, entered Kentucky 
on a flying campaign early in July, 1862. They were well mounted and 
armed and carried a small battery of two light mountain howitzers, which 
proved of most effective use in shelling an enemy within eight hundred 
yards and throwing grape and canister three hundred. They could go any- 
where a light wagon could go, and could be carried by hand along the line 
as close to the enemy as the line could move. Morgan's troops were armed 
for both infantry or cavalry fighting, carrying an Enfield or other gun and two 
army Colt revolvers each. They fought usually dismounted and as infantry, 
lit is said that the peculiar methods of operating around the enemy and raid- 
ing for hundreds of miles in his rear caused the Federal army to employ one- 
fourth its forces for rear guards. With one thousand horsemen under such 
leadership, and with the privates capable of acting individually in almosf 
any emergency, it was possible to keep employed ten thousand of the enemy 
in the defense of depots and communications. Even thus, Morgan was 
able to capture these posts, to break communications, and to break up and 
disconcert the enemy's plans to a large extent. Morgan's officers and men 
were mainly Kentuckians, and their wonderful work is the best evidence of 
capacity. It showed the possession of fertility of invention, endurance, and 
vigor of action demanded in successful war. His methods and tactics were 
suggestive, and came to be imitated by the leaders of mounted forces on 
both sides in time. 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealths, p. 288. 



morgan's raid in KENTUCKY. 623 

iQn the 8th of July, the command crossed the Cumberland river, and late 
in the afternoon attacked and routed a force of three hundred and fifty Fed- 
erals, under Major Jordan, at Tompkinsville, inflicting a loss of over forty 
killed and wounded, and many more prisoners, Major Jordan among the 
latter. Passing through Glasgow the next day, a halt was made at Bear 
Wallow, where Ellsworth, an expert operator on Morgan's staff, tapped the 
telegraph line between Louisville and Nashville, to obtain the necessary 
information of the Federal forces in Kentucky, and from Federal head- 
quarters. Connecting an instrument and wire carried for the purpose, he 
obtained what he wished to know, under guise of friendly assurance, and, 
in return, sent misleading messages concerning Confederate plans and move- 
ments, especially of Morgan's command. Pushing forward, Lebanon was 
reached and captured after nightfall of the next day, with two hundred 
prisoners, and a large collection of stores, of arms, ammunition, and provis- 
ions. After sending out detachments to break the railroad lines and prevent 
pursuit, destroying nearly a million dollars' worth of army property which 
could not be used, and using the telegraph as at Bear Wallow, the command 
moved on through Springfield, Harrodsburg, Lawrenceburg, and Versailles, 
to Midway, with skirmishes and adventures along the route. At Midway, 
the telegraph station and operator were captured, and utilized as before by 
Ellsworth. With the official and signal book of the regular operator, tele- 
graphic strategy was put actively into effect along the main lines to Louis- 
ville, Cincinnati, and Lexington, and immense excitement created at these 
places, and over Central Kentucky, from exaggerated reports of Morgan's 
forces and exploits, sent from Midway. In the midst of this disordered 
chaos and puzzle of the Federal authorities at the various important posts, 
the main body of the Confederate cavalry moved to Georgetown. From 
this point, after sending a small detachment to make a feint on Lexington, 
as at Frankfort, Morgan directed his march to Cynthiana. Here Colonel 
J. J. Landrum, a brave and gallant Federal officer, held this post with six 
hundred men and one twelve-pound cannon. On the 17th, an attack was 
made in force by the Confederates, with their usual daring. The defense 
was bravely and skillfully conducted, and for several hours the ground was 
contested from house to house and from street to street, the citizens taking 
refuge in cellars and other secure places. At last all resistance was over- 
come, with a loss to the Federals of nearly five hundred in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, and about fifty killed and wounded of the Confederates. 
Colonel Landrum, mounted on a splendid horse, when the issue of battle 
was over, after fighting to the end of hope, made his escape from the pur- 
suing enemy. 

From Cynthiana, Morgan's cavalry passed on to Paris, and out of Ken- 
tucky by way of Winchester, Richmond, Crab Orchard, and Somerset, de- 
stroying many wagons and stores. On this route he was hotly pursued by a 

I Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, p. 184. 



024 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Federal cavalry force of twelve hundred men, under General Green Clay 
Smith, who came near enough to skirmish with the rear guard of the rapid 
raiders only. The exit from Kentucky was completed by way of Monticello, 
with Colonel Frank L. Wolford menacing the flank. In his official repoit, 1 
Colonel Morgan says: "I left Knoxville July 4th, with about nine hun- 1 
dred men, and returned to Livingston, Tennessee, on the 28th, with nearly 
twelve hundred men, having been absent just twenty-four days. During 
this time I traveled over a thousand miles, captured seventeen towns, de- 
stroyed all the government supplies and arms in them, captured three 
hundred government horses at Cynthiana, dispersed fifteen hundred Home 
Guards, and paroled nearly twelve hundred regular troops. I lost, in killed, 
wounded, and missing, of the number I carried into Kentucky, about ninety 
men." 

Colonel Frank L. Wolford's regiment of Federal cavalry, raised in the 
upper Cumberland and Green river portion of the State, obtained noted 
reputation for its activity and efficiency in the service on that side, as did 
other cavalry commands on both sides of the contest. The same may be 
said of infantry commands mainly contributed by Kentucky to the one cause 
or the other, but the history of those brave men and deeds have had no 
special compilation; nor will the limits of this work admit of more than a 
partial narration of such commands and their operations as will preserve the 
connection of main events of the war, and on either side. 

General Jerry T. Boyle was appointed military commandant, June i, 
1862, with headquarters at Louisville. The Government at Washington 

was demanding the enforcement of 
a more threatening and intimidat- 
ing policy in the border States, 
and especially in Kentucky, as thdB' 
North and South factions had crys- 
tallized into decided hostility, and 
the actions of adherents on either 
side boldly tended to give aid and 
comfort to the one cause or the 
other, as they had espoused. Re- 
cruiting, furnishing information, 
sending out supplies, and shelter- 
ing the bold scouts and raiders 
across the military line, were as 
ardently and as defiantly done by 
the ^' Seces/i Sympathizers,^' as the friends of the South were called, as they 
dared. Secret messengers and spies continuously passed through the lines, 
bearing communications between the Confederate army and their civilian 
friends in the Federal rear. This irrepressible Southern element, in contin- 
uous activity, managed to keep in fomenting and menacing condition the 




GENERAL JEREMIAH TILFORD BOYLE. 



PROMINENT CITIZENS IMPRISONED. 625 

rebellious population throughout the State. It is true that the more lawless 
of the Home Guards and violent Union men were giving even more trouble 
and annoyance to the people, as they had more authority and opportunity. 
Yet it was not strange that, in such a stage of pervading war, the power 
holding possession and jurisdiction should adopt and execute the severest 
measures of repression, not incompatible with the laws of civilized war- 
fare. The formidable armaments and the titanic resistance of the Confed- 
eracy had put the powers of the Federal Government to the strain of 
exertion that called forth every resource of war. 

iJn accordance with the orders of the war department, provost marshals 
were appointed in all the counties by the commandant. Orders were issued 
to these, to require that all who had joined the Confederates, given aid, or 
gone beyond the lines, should now report themselves, take the oath of alle- 
giance, and give bonds for future submissiveness, on penalty of arrest and 
imprisonment. Second — All who should hereafter give aid and comfort to 
the enemy must be arrested and dealt with according to military law. Third — 
When the person or property of loyal citizens should be damaged by maraud- 
ing bands of guerrillas, the disloyal citizens of the locality must be held 
responsible, and a military commission appointed to assess damages and 
enforce compensation. A form of an oath of allegiance was drawn up for 
the signatures of the disloyal, and beneath was printed: "The penalty for 
violating this oath is death." Many arrests were made under these orders, 
and a number of citizens sent to prison at Louisville, Newport Barracks, 
Camp Chase, at Columbus, Ohio, and elsewhere. On the whole, these laws 
were enforced with moderation, in the hands of officials who, though deter- 
mined partisans, were honorable and humane men; yet there were some 
who seized upon the opportunity to inflict much injury, annoyance, and loss, 
unnecessarily, to citizens of the State. The people of a district or county 
fared well or ill, according to the character of the petty local provost in 
authority. While the rude and cruel excesses of some gave their proceed- 
ings a character of infamy, the neighborly friendship and kindness of many 
in like authority became a shield of protection and safety to the citizenship 
around. Indeed, throughout the war, the integrity and humanity of men in 
power on both sides, made a never-absent restraint upon the spirit of lawless- 
ness, that is inseparable from a state of civil war. The dashing and successful 
raid of Morgan's cavalry through Central Kentucky, however, produced almost 
a panic of consternation in the Union quarters, and very much exasperated 
the authorities to acts of greater severity. 

The subsequent tyrannical measures which the authorities in Kentucky 
were called on to execute, emanated from the cruel and merciless nature of 
Edwin M, Stanton, secretary of war, with whose name the responsibilities 
should be placed more than with any other man. A reign of martial law, 
overriding the civil authorities, for over two years, brought out its natural 

I Collins' Annals of Kentucky. 

40 



626 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

fruitage of lawlessness and violence, on the part of the vicious and unscru- 
pulous class, who dared any outrage under pretext of military license. While 
military commandant, General Boyle executed the policy outlined and 
ordered, perhaps with as much leniency as he was allowed, but with a se- 
verity that even strained the rules of civilized warfare, and under a condition 
of martial law. Behind this aspect of official severity, the commandant 
was a man of personal integrity and honor, and of kindly and humane dis- 
position. He was inflexibly loyal, and sought only to serve his country and 
cause faithfully. His execution of Stanton's policy has been criticised, 
perhaps with not always deserved censure. His dilemma was one that 
repeatedly fell upon good men in authority during this period of anarchy. 
They had the choice to remain in office and execute the oppressive orders 
of their superiors, with such leniency as they could personally extend, or 
resign, and open the way for some unscrupulous and vindictive successor 
to add the violence of execution to the cruelty of the spirit of orders sent 
him. In this way some of the purest men of Kentucky, known to the 
author, bore the censure of popular malediction, while standing between 
the execution of a harsh policy and its violent abuse in less worthy hands. 
The force of this extenuation will be seen in the following pages, in which 
are recorded the acts and administrations of the petty Neroes of murder, 
outrage and robbery, who succeeded on the retirement of General Boyle, 
only to institute a reign of terror, such as Kentucky had never before 
known, and under which General Boyle declined to be executioner. 

1 Under orders issued, hundreds of citizens of disloyal sentiment were 
arrested and sent off to prisons, among them Revs. Stuart Robinson, Mr. 
Duncan, S. D. Baldwin, R. Ford, Thomas J. Fisher, W. H. Hopson, and 
others of the ministry; Messrs. James O'Hara, Thomas L. Jones, Hubbard 
D. Helm, Lucius Desha, and scores of private citizens. Prisons were pre- 
pared for disloyal women, though these were yet but little used. The provost 
marshals were instructed to allow no one to stand for office who was of 
Southern sympathy, and among the many candidates who withdrew under 
this rule of the bayonet were some of the best and quietest citizens. Under 
the orders of Colonel Noble, in Paducah, the soldiers entered the court- 
room and broke up the court while in session. Thousands of dollars of in- 
demnity assessments were collected of innocent citizens. These invasions 
of personal liberty and overthrow of civil authorities are the invariable con- 
sequences of a protracted state of civil war ; they are peculiar to no age or 
people of past history. We mention here but a few of their incidents, that 
the future citizen who reads may learn to know the realities of war only to 
abhor and avoid its passionate strifes and cruel inhumanities, where the worst 
men and the worst nature of good men are ever in dominant activity. 

The effect of hostilities to this date on the value of slave property was J 
very fairly illustrated at the sale of eleven slaves in Madison county in May, * 

I Collins, Vol. I., Annals of Kentucky. 



M 



RESIGNATION OF GOVERNOR MAGOFFIN. 627 

1862, who brought at public outcry one hundred and forty to three hundred 
and eighty-eight dollars each. Two years previous, five hundred to twelve 
hundred dollars each would have been about the market value of these. 
The sentiment was universal that the institution had received its death-blow, 
but the speculative hope was indulged that Kentucky might in some way re- 
ceive compensation, or that emancipation would be graduated so as to allow 
the owners of slaves the right of their services for a period of years. 

^In August, Adjutant-General Finnell reported the number of volunteers 
enrolled in the United States army from Kentucky to that date at forty-one 
thousand seven hundred and three. He announced that "no more volun- 
teers for one-year mounted men would be received; the regiments are now 
full to overflowing." 

During the summer of 1862, Governor Magoffin had exerted the extreme 
of his authority, as the civil head of the Commonwealth, to arrest the en- 
croachments of military usurpations upon the rights of the citizens and the 
prerogatives of the civil powers. In vain had he ordered the courts held, 
the ballot-box to be open to every citizen with the right of suffrage, the 
rights of person and property to be respected, and the functions of civil au- 
thority ever to operate. The antagonizing sentiment between the Federal 
head at Washington, which found expression through both civil and military 
representatives, and the governor was irreconcilable, and the constant fric- 
tion between the two was the cause of irritations not favorable to the peace 
of the public. Believing that the time had come when it would be better to 
relieve himself of further responsibility. Governor Magoffin, on the i6th of 
August, sent in to the Legislature a message tendering his resignation, to 
take place on the i8th, and at the same time the following document: 

"At any time within the last eighteen months I have been willing to re- 
sign my office, could I have done so consistently with my self-respect. But 
the storms of undeserved abuse which have been heaped on me, and the 
threats of impeachment, arrest, and even assassination, repeatedly made 
against me, have compelled me to continue in the quiet discharge of my 
duty. As yet, no one has dared, before any tribunal of authority, to prefer 
a charge against me. My political friends — and by this term I mean the 
Southern rights party, a great many of whom are not, and never have been, 
secessionists — have been subjected to what seems to me, in modern times, an 
unexampled persecution. It became impossible for me to relieve them, and 
yet I could not reconcile myself to even appear to desert them in their need. 
Could I be assured that my successor would be a conservative, just man, of 
high position and character, and that his policy would be conciliatory and 
impartial toward all law-abiding citizens, however they may differ in opinion; 
that the constitutional rights of the people would be regarded, and the sub- 
ordination of the military to the civil power be insisted on and maintained, 
I would not hesitate to put aside the cares of office and to tender my best 

I Collins, Vol. I., Annals of Kentucky. 



628 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

wishes to such an executive. Without a satisfactory assurance to that effect, 
you must admit that, in justice to my friends, I can not and ought not to re- 
sign." 

1 Senator John F. Fisk having been elected speaker on the death of Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Lynn Boyd, and thus put in the line to succeed to the gu- 
bernatorial vacancy, by previous concert, resigned, and James F. Robinson 
was elected speaker of the Senate in his stead, before the announcement of 
Governor Magoffin's resignation. Governor Robinson was then installed in 
office, and D. C. Wickliffe appointed secretary of state. 

There is little doubt but that to effect this change of governors was a 
main object of the severe pressure brought to bear by the commandant, 
General Boyle, concertedly endorsed by the leading Union civilians of the 
State, upon the Southern rights sympathizers thereof. At the same date of 
the change, Provost-Marshal Dent, of Louisville, announced that " no arrests 
must be made except for causes set forth in General Boyle's order No. 4. 
The charge must be specific and supported by the written affidavit of one or 
more responsible persons;" that General Boyle orders that "he execute his 
office under the governor, and that provost-marshals who, directly or indi- 
rectly, take money from persons arrested, in the shape of fees for oaths, 
bonds, or otherwise, will be arrested and brought to headquarters." The 
severity of martial law was generally relaxed, for that period. The facts 
and inferences go far to relieve General Boyle, a gentleman of irreproach- 
able personal honor, from the mistaken imputations of malice and cruelty so 
inconsiderately put upon him. Fortunate, indeed, for the people of Ken- 
tucky would it have been had he been retained in authority until 1865. 

Kentucky was now detached from the department of the Cumberland, 
within the command of General Buell, and made part of the new "depart- 
ment of the Ohio," placed under command of General H. G. Wright, sent A; 
Out from the East by Halleck. ■ 

2 In the latter half of the summer, the incidents of military operations 
gave premonition of coming campaign and battle on a scale of magnitude 
to mark an epoch in the history of the war, of important bearing on its final 
issue. The main Confederate force in the Tennessee valley was moved 
from Tupelo to Chattanooga, where under the chief command of General 
Braxton Bragg, it was re-enforced to thirty thousand men, well armed and 
accoutered. General Kirby Smith held East Tennessee above, with fifteen ■ 
thousand troops, and headquarters at Knoxville. General Stevenson, with 
five thousand men, lay south of Cumberland Gap, to guard against invasion 
there, while General Humphrey Marshall, with three thousand troops, was 
on the border line of South-west Virginia. There were bodies of cavalry 
and detached forces that swelled the total army within the command of 
Bragg to fifty-five thousand effective troops. General Buell held at his 



I Collins, Vol. I., Annals of Kentucky. 

3 Official reports; General Duke, in History of Morgan's Cavalry. 



1 



THE FEDERALS DEFEATED. 629 

command about forty thousand veteran Federal troops in Middle Tennessee, 
with Nashville the base of operations and supplies. General Morgan held 
Cumberland Gap, with eight thousand, and there were fifteen thousand more 
effective men at different points in Kentucky. Van Dorn and Price held 
General Grant yet in Mississippi. 

Skirmishes and fighting were of daily occurrence, in advance of the great 
struggle to come. Morgan's cavalry had been ordered by Bragg to obstruct 
the railroad north of Nashville to Bowling Green. He found Gallatin 
guarded by Colonel Boone, of the Twenty-eighth Kentucky, with two hun- 
dred and fifty soldiers, and soon captured these and destroyed the army 
stores. Capturing a train of freight cars, they were run into the tunnel, 
some miles south of Gallatin, and set on fire. The wooden bracings of the 
tunnel were burned, and, the debris falling in from the top and sides, made 
the railroad impassable for weeks at this point, cutting transportation be- 
tween Nashville and Kentucky. Falling back toward Hartsville, Morgan's 
force of seven hundred men was pursued and boldly attacked by eight 
hundred cavalry, under General R. W. Johnson, of Kentucky, at the junc- 
tion of the Scottsville and Hartsville turnpikes. After several hours of 
stubborn battle, both commands showing great gallantry. General Johnson 
was defeated, with a loss of one hundred and sixty killed and wounded, 
and as many prisoners, among the latter General Johnson and Major Tom 
Winfrey. 

On the 23d, Colonel John Scott's regiment of cavalry, forming an advance 
scout of Kirby Smith's army, was attacked by Colonel Metcalfe's mounted 
regiment. After a sharp fight, the latter was routed, with a loss of fifty 
men. This was but an introductory skirmish. General Kirby Smith, after 
re-enforcing Stevenson, to watch Morgan at Cumberland Gap, to eight 
thousand men, left Knoxville with twelve thousand troops, and entered 
Kentucky through Big Creek Gap, twenty miles west of Cumberland Gap. 
Wishing to make a secretive and swift march, in order to strike the enemy 
by surprise, he left upon the route some five thousand of his command, 
under General Heath, to follow after, and traversed over one hundred miles 
of rugged mountain country by forced marches. On the 29th of August, 
his army of seven thousand engaged the Federal army, eight thousand in 
number, at Richmond, Kentucky, and heavy skirmishing ensued. On the 
morning of the 30th, General Manson, in command of the Federals, marched 
out in full force to renew the attack. Heavy fighting was brought on, and 
after three successive stands by General Manson, driven back each time, 
with severe carnage to either side, the Federal army was defeated, and 
driven into disorderly and hopeless rout. General Nelson, in chief com- 
mand of these forces, rode fifty miles on a relay of horses on that day, and, 
on reaching the broken army, made heroic efforts to rally it, and renew the 
fight, but in vain. He was desperately wounded in the effort, and only 
escaped with his life by the discreet bravery of Colonel Green Clay Smith, 



630 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



who safely bore him from the field and danger. The Federal loss was over 
eleven hundred killed and wounded, and forty-five hundred prisoners ; that 
of the Confederates, eight hundred and fifty in killed and wounded. 

The remnants of the Federal troops retreated in disorder back upon 
I>exington, from whence, with some fifteen hundred troops stationed there, 
they rapidly fell back toward the Ohio river. Lexington and entire Ken- 
tucky east of Louisville were now abandoned to the control of the Confed- 
erate forces. On the ist of September, the advance of General Smith's 
army occupied Lexington, soon joined by the remainder, under General 
Heath, with headquarters there. On the 4th, Morgan's cavalry, having come 
from Tennessee by way of Glasgow, Liberty, and Danville, reported for 
duty at Lexington. General Heath, with five thousand men, was sent 
along the line of the Kentucky Central railroad to a position in the rear of 
Covington, threatening Cincinnati. The Federals evacuated Paris, Frank, 
fort, and every other guarded point east of the Louisville & Nashville railroad, 
the scattered forces all hastening toward the Ohio river. 

The Federal General George Morgan, with eight thousand troops, was 
fairly entrapped at Cumberland Gap. His condition seemed almost hopelessly 
critical. Yet it was one of those occasions that sometimes occur to try the 
courage and heroism of men. Morgan proved his manhood to be equal to the 
emergency, and fortune favored him. He got two days the start of General 
Stevenson, from whom pursuit was expected. Orders had been sent to 

General Humphrey Marshall, a 
grandson of the Kentucky historian, was 
born at Frankfort, January 13, 1812, and 
graduated at West Point, in 1832 ; after a 
brief army service, studied law, and lo- 
cated for practice in Louisville, in 1834. 
In 1846, joined Taylor's army in the 
Mexican war, as colonel of the First Ken- 
tucky cavalry regiment, and distinguished 
himself in the battle of Buena Vista; re- 
- turned to his farm and the law in Henry 
4 county; in 1849-51-55-57, was elected 
J to Congress; in 1852-54, was minister to 
China; pursued farming and the law until 
1861, when he entered the Confederate 
army, as brigadier-general, with the com- 
~''^^" " mand of East Kentucky; resigned his 

GENERAL HUMPHREY MARSHALL. commission in the army in 1863, and was 

elected to the Confederate Congress from Kentucky. At the close of the war, after a 
year at New Orleans, he located and resumed the practice of law in Louisville, from 
1866 until his death, March 28, 1872. General Marshall was of a line of ancestors illus- 
trious in State and national history, among whom there was, perhaps, no member of 
more massive and powerful intellect than he. Horace Greeley said of him, when in 
Congress, that "his was the greatest mind of that body." 




I 



ACTIVITY OF THE CONFEDERATES. 63I 

General Humphrey Marshall, then at Mount Sterling in full force, to throw 
himself on Morgan's front or flank, while John H. Morgan's cavalry har- 
assed him, and together bar his passage, and fasten him in the r»ountain 
passes until forced to surrender, or re-enforcements could be sent to capture 
him. For some reason. General Marshall did not respond to the order. 
Marshall claimed that no authoritative order was given him, and that he 
was chafing to go in pursuit of the retreating Federals. General Morgan 
passed Cumberland Ford, Manchester, Proctor, and Compton, without ob- 
struction. From this point through Hazel Green to Grayson, John H. 
Morgan's cavalry was in his front, felling trees across the passes, skirmish- 
ing with the front, and obstructing in every way, until aid might come from 
Stevenson in pursuit, or Marshall on the flank. But it never arrived ; and 
the Federal command reached Greenupsburg in sixteen days from the 
Gap, after a retreat of two hundred miles through the rough mountains of 
Kentucky, in safety. The failure to capture was a mischance to the Con- 
federates. 

Intense excitement and commotion extended on both sides of the Ohio 
river, and the Federal authorities began rapidly to fortify, re-enforce, and 
organize their defensive forces at Louisville and Cincinnati. In a short time, 
ten thousand soldiers were organized and equipped at each of these points, 
and the numbers swelled daily. The arrival of General Morgan's escaped 
army added much strength to the organized defense. A Federal force of 
eight thousand, assuming the offensive, marched out from Covington to 
demonstrate on the command of Heath. The latter fell back slowly toward 
Georgetown. He might easily have captured Cincinnati on his first approach 
to the rear of Covington, before there was an organized defense of any im- 
portance. But General Kirby Smith gave no orders for such attack, for the 
same reason that he spared no adequate force to intercept and capture Gen- 
eral George Morgan. Bragg's main army was soon expected in Kentucky, 
and the entire force of Kirby Smith, forming its right wing, would be sum- 
marily needed in the anticipated decisive struggle with the Federal army, 
under Buell. The troops could not be spared to capture and hold Cincin- 
nati, or to intercept General George Morgan. 

^ The greatest activity was displayed by the Confederate commands in 
recruiting men, in collecting army supplies, and in generally strengthening 
every arm of the service. General Bragg had left Chattanooga with his 
army, and was pushing on through Sparta, Tennessee, and Glasgow, to in- 
tercept Buell, and prevent his falling back on Louisville. On the 14th, 
Bragg was at Glasgow in full force, while Buell had not yet fully reached 
Bowling Green. The former moving on to Green river, at the crossing of 
the Louisville & Nashville railroad, captured the Federal fortifications, and 
the garrison of four thousand troops, at Munfordville. His army, fully 
equal to Buell's in number, now occupied the strongest natural position be- 

I Duke's History; General Gilbert, in Bivouac. Official Reports. 



/ 



632 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tween Bowling Green and Louisville, and lay right across the only easy and 
convenient military route for the passage of the Federal army to Louisville, 
its only refuge from destruction. 

Never before, in the history of the war, had the cause of the Union been 
put in such jeopardy. Never were the friends of that cause more abjectly 
despondent; never before, the friends of the Southern cause more exuberant 
with hope and joy. News had come of the disastrous defeat of the Union 
army of the Potomac, under General Pope, at the second battle of Manas- 
sas Plains, with a loss of twenty-two thousand killed, wounded, and prison- 
ers; the capture of eleven thousand Federal soldiers at Harper's Ferry, and 
the advance of General Lee into Maryland, and on the flank of Washing- 
ton. Already ten thousand of Buell's supports had melted away by the 
results of Richmond and Munfordville, and the captures by the Confederate 
cavalry commands, in the department of the Cumberland. Some three 
thousand new recruits had joined the several Confederate commands, during 
the two or three weeks from Kirby Smith's entrance into Lexington, to the 
occupation of Green river heights by Bragg's army ; and thousands more 
were in busy preparation to cast in their fortunes in the same direction. 
Throughout the country, expectation was on the hourly strain to hear of the 
great battle, on terms of Bragg's own advantageous choosing; the convic- 
tion was all-pervading that Buell would suffer disastrous defeat — probably 
the annihilation of his whole command. Repeatedly was the sentiment 
uttered by Union men in those hours of suspense, in hearing of the author: 
*' It is the darkest hour the Union cause has ever yet known ! " and on the 
part of Southern sympathizers, "Lee has driven the enemy out of Virginia, 
and Bragg is sure to destroy the army of the Cumberland ; the independence 
of the Confederacy is almost w^on !" To reconcile the coincidences of those 
phenomenal events that wrought such a miracle of change within the next 
thirty days, the God of peace and of war, and His mysterious providences, 
must be taken into the account. Ten tliousand re-enforcements and abun- 
dant provisions could have met Bragg at Munfordville, for battle in front or 
flank, from Central Kentucky. 

Hourly and impatiently intelligence was awaited at Kirby Smith's head- 
quarters at Lexington. In consternation, then, it was learned about the 
2ist of September, that General Bragg had abandoned his impregnable 
stronghold in Buell's front, retreated before his enemy to Bardstown, and A, 
given him a clear and undisputed passage to his base at Louisville. The ■ 
news came with the stunning force of a powerful current from an electric 
battery. It was at first treated with incredulity and discredit, as an event 
impossible to sanity. Soon the confirmation followed, and wath it an alterna- 
tion of blank despair to the Confederates, and of buoyant hope to the Union 
men. This strangest phenomenon of military strategy, of all the strange 
episodes of the war, was doubtless the most disastrous in its moral, as well 
as its physical, results, of any other that occurred. The highest subordinate 



CONFEDERATE OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 633 

officials on the Confederate side were dumb and passive, when they dared 
not censure, and could not extenuate ; the soldiers and people everywhere 
gave vent to imprecations not to be characterized in the phrases of history. 
All confidence was broken down in the author of a calamity so fatal, so 
inexcusable. Utter demoralization of hope came over the spirits of the 
army and people, and the presentiment was well-nigh universal that blun^ 
ders and disasters would follow the Confederate army of the West, as long 
as General Bragg remained in chief command. That he would again lose 
Kentucky, and abandon the territory won by Kirby Smith, to Federal occu- 
pation again, was more than a presentiment. Thousands of volunteer 
recruits who, in the past two weeks had been making their preparations to 
join the Southern forces, abandoned the idea, to remain at home and care 
for their families and kindred, under Federal rule restored. 

The opportunity of capturing Louisville and Cincinnati, and of making 
a military front of the Ohio river, had been thrown away; of paralyzing or 
annihilating Buell's army, lost; and of holding Kentucky, more than put in 
jeopardy. When Buell reached Louisville on the 25th of September, all was 
felt to be lost that had been hoped for by this invasion of Kentucky. Bragg 
had suffered himself to be put upon the defensive, with an all-pervading 
sense of defeat and disorder oppressing the military and civil authorities. 

After Buell established himself at Louisville, at the end of September, 
the Confederate line extended from Bardstown, on the left, through Frank- 
fort and Lexington, to Mount Sterling, on the right — an admirable line for 
easy movement of supports by turnpike or railroads, while the base at Bry- 
an tsville was as secure as could be made. The force available for the de- 
fense of this line was fifty thousand men. 

^On the I St of October, Buell moved out of Louisville seventy thousand 
strong. From the direction of Cincinnati and other supporting points, yet 
not in striking distance, there were twenty thousand more troops, swelling 
the Federal army of the Cumberland to ninety thousand. Skirmishes and 
picket fights were of daily occurrence. On the i8th of September, a com- 
pany of Texas rangers were beaten off at Falmouth by the Home Guards, 
with several killed and wounded. At Owensboro, on the 19th, the Confed- 
erates attacked and defeated the Federals, killing the colonel of their regi- 
ment; and, in turn, were attacked and driven out by a body of neighboring 
Home Guards. A body of Confederate cavalry were beaten off, with a loss 
of forty men, by Granger's command, at Shepherdsville, and the railroad 
bridge saved. On the 21st, about one hundred and seventy Home Guard 
cavalry, under Provost Marshal-Morris, of Lagrange, had a sharp fight with 
Colonel George M. Jessee's Confederate command, at Newcastle, with sev- 
eral killed and wounded on both sides, and the capture of Morris' forces, 
with their arms and horses and one piece of artillery. General Duke's de- 
tachment of Morgan's cavalry captured a company of Federals at Walton, 

1 Collins' Annals of Kentucky; General Gilbert in Bivouac. Official statements. 



634 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

and at Augusta, in an attempt to cross the Ohio river and operate in the rear 
of Cincinnati, they were fiercely attacked by a body of Home Guards, 
under Dr. Bradford, who fired from the houses and behind shelter with 
deadly effect. Some forty Confederates were killed and wounded, and the 
movement across the Ohio checked. The Union loss was quite severe, and 
they were forced to surrender only after the burning of two squares of 
houses to dislodge them. 

General Wharton's Confederate cavalry engaged the advance guard of 
Buell's army at Bardstown, and drove it back on the main body, with loss^ 
on the 4th of October. An exciting hand-to-hand fight took place at Law- 
renceburg between Colonel Scott's Confederate and Colonel R. T. Jacob's 
Federal regiments of cavalry. On the 7th, near Bardstown, the Seventy- 
eighth Indiana regiment was surprised, captured, and paroled by Confed- 
erate troops. These are but a few of similar conflicts occurring almost 
daily between the shifting scouts and moving bodies of cavalry over the 
State, apart from the main commands of the two armies. 

ijust as the Federal army was about to leave Louisville for its grand ad- 
vance, an order came from Washington removing Buell from the chief com- 
mand and appointing General George H. Thomas to succeed him. Buell 
had evidently not been a favorite with Halleck and Stanton since the cam- 
paign against Forts Henry and Donelson, and even the good fortune that 
attended his campaigns from Kentucky to Shiloh and return to Louisville, 
thrice victorious in as many great issues, could not stay the shafts of preju- 
dice from that august and fruitful source of blundering interference. The 
patriotic and disinterested good sense of General Thomas discerned the mis-- 
take and its probable fatal consequences, and he promptly declined the com- 
mand, with a protest against Buell's removal, which was heeded. Retaining 
command, the latter sent out a detachment of six thousand men, under 
General Dumont, through Shelbyville, as a demonstration on Frankfort, 
and another of like number, under General Sill, through Taylorsville, to 
deploy in the front of General Kirby Smith at Lawrenceburg, while he 
marched his main body of fifty-eight thousand, by way of Bardstown and 
Springfield, to the vicinity of Perryville. .fl 

Bragg was completely deceived and bewildered by these movements. 
Kirby Smith's army was now gathered about Frankfort, Versailles, and Law, 
renceburg, having been increased by the arrival of Stevenson with eight 
thousand troops and Marshall with thirty-five hundred, to over twenty thou- ■ 
sand effective men. On the 4th, the empty ceremonies of inaugurating the ^ 
venerable Richard Hawes provisional governor of Kentucky, as one of the 
Confederate States, were gone through with at Frankfort as the rear guards 
of Smith's army retired from the place, and in sight and hearing of Dumont's 
advancing artillery. So misled was General Bragg into the belief that Buell 



fi 



I Duke's History, p. 263; Collins' Annals of Kentucky; General Gilbert in Bivouac. Official re- 
ports. 



i^ 



BATTLE OF PERKYVILLE. 635 

was marching his main army to attack Kirby Smith at Frankfort or Law- 
renceburg that he ordered General Polk, on the 2d, to move his corps from 
Bardstown, through Bloomfield, toward Frankfort, to strike Buell in the flank 
and rear. On the 3d, General Polk rentured to disobey, in the following 
response to Bragg : "A condition of things on my right and left flank has 
developed, which I shadowed forth to you in my last note, which make 
compliance with your order eminently inexpedient. I shall, therefore, pur- 
sue a different course, assured that when the facts are submitted to you, you 
will justify my decision." Buell's army was then less than a day's march 
fronting Bardstown. 

^On the 6th, Bragg ordered Kirby Smith to concentrate at Versailles, 
and make his headquarters at Harrodsburg, where Polk's corps was soon in 
camp, made up of Cheatham's and Withers' divisions; in all, some fifteen 
thousand men. Hardee was near Perryville, with the two divisions of Gen- 
erals Buckner and R. H. Anderson, probably twelve thousand men. On 
the morning of the 8th, the corps of Hardee was re-enforced with Cheat- 
ham's division. Generals Bragg and Polk having moved up from Harrods- 
burg at the time. Of the Federal army, there were in front of these, 
McCook's corps, fourteen thousand strong, made up of Generals Rous- 
seau's division, seven thousand; Jackson's, fifty-five hundred, and Gooding's 
brigade, fifteen hundred; also in reach, General Gilbert's Third army corps, 
eleven thousand, made up of Generals Mitchell's Ninth division, Sheridan's 
Eleventh division, and Schoepff' s First division, a total of twenty-five thou- 
sand, opposed to which was about sixteen thousand Confederates, in three 
divisions. Both armies had been preparing for battle since early morning, 
skirmishing while getting into position. 

At half-past twelve in the afternoon, the Federals still delaying for 
General Thomas L. Crittenden's corps to come up. General Polk began a 
vigorous attack upon McCook's forces, and soon brought on a general en- 
gagement. The battle raged with fierceness and terrible carnage until 
nightfall along the entire line, with varying results, in the main in favor of 
the Confederates. The Federals were driven back from one to two miles 
along the whole line, losing fifteen pieces of artillery and four hundred 
prisoners, when nightfall put an end to the contest. 

For the numbers engaged, the battle of Perryville is recorded as one of 
the bloodiest and most stubbornly contested of the war. General Bragg 
being present, in his official report, says : " For the time engaged, this battle 
was the severest and most desperately contested within my knowledge." 
General Buell, in his report, says: "This battle will stand conspicuous for 
its severity in the history of the rebellion." The Federal officials report, in 
the two corps, their loss at 931 killed, 3,018 wounded, and 397 missing, a 
total of 4,346. The Confederate losses altogether were 3,396 in the three 
divisions engaged. Both commanders-in-chief were misled in this battle. 

I Collins' Annals of Kentucky; Duke's History; Gilbert in Bivouac. Official reports 



^3^ HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

General Buell, with headquarters but a few miles in the rear, failed to hear 
the roar of the cannon for three hours after the battle began, and was ig- 
norant that the engagement was going on. General Bragg, from failure to 
keep himself posted of the enemy's movements, though advised by the sub- 
ordinate generals, again lost the opportunity of concentration, and of signal 
victory. That confusion and vacillation which seemed to have beset him 
since his entrance into Kentucky, he yet acted under. The delusion, that 
the feint of Dumont on Frankfort was the forward movement of Buell's 
main army, left idly in camp Withers' division, at Harrodsburg, and Kirby 
Smith's army, at Versailles,, thirty thousand men, which he might easily 
have concentrated with the three divisions at Perryville, and, with an army 
of near fifty thousand men, beaten the divided corps of the Federal army in 
succession, and retrieved by a splendid victory mainly what he had lost by 
the abandonment of the Munfordville route to Buell three weeks before. 

Before the morning of the 9th, General Buell was re-enforced by the 
timely arrival of other detachments of his army, while General Bragg could 
only re-enforce with Withers' division. The latter chose, therefore, to fall 
back to Harrodsburg, and concentrate by ordering to that place the army 
of General Smith. Here the two armies, now in full strength, confronted 
each other, forty-five thousand Confederates, and fifty-four thousand Fed^ 
erals, after the losses at Perryville. Their lines were but three miles apart, ■ 
and it was the general belief that General Bragg should, and would, deliver 
battle to his enemy now, on terms as nearly equal as is usual in the great 
contests of war. But two days before he had exposed three divisions of his 
troops to the possibility of being overwhelmed by Buell's whole army. 
Would he now fight that army with the threefold strength of concentration? 

The expectation of a great battle on that day was disappointed. General 
Bragg ordered his command to fall back upon his base, at Bryantsville, and, 
gathering up all supplies collected, he continued his march of retreat to Lan- 
caster, where the army was divided, General Smith going out by Richmond 
and Cumberland Gap, and General Bragg by Crab Orchard, into Tennessee. 

In the language of Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry: "Thus ended 
a campaign from which so much was expected, and which, had it been suc- 
cessful, would have incalculably benefited the Confederate cause. Able 
writers have exerted all their skill in apologies for this campaign, but time 
has developed into a certainty the opinion then instinctively held by so 
many, that, with the failure to hold Kentucky, the best and last chance to 
win the war was thrown away. All the subsequent tremendous struggle was 
but the expiring efforts of a gallant people in what they believed to be a 
great cause." At the Confederate capital, the Richmond papers spoke of 
Bragg's Kentucky campaign as "a brilliant blunder, and a magnificent 
failure, profoundly disappointing and mortifying Southern people, and dash- 
ing their fond hopes of liberating Kentucky and Tennessee from the Federal 
hold." 



HEAVY FIGHTING. 637 

Heavy skirmishing and cavalry rencounters were of frequent occurrence 
in the commotions caused by the movements of the two great armies. On 
the loth, Colonel John Boyle, with the Ninth Kentucky cavalry, dashed into 
Harrodsburg and captured some sixteen hundred Confederates in the rear 
of Bragg's army, many of them the wounded from Perryville. General John 
H. Morgan, returning upon the route of the Confederate retreat, attacked 
the Fourth Ohio cavalry, who had occupied Lexington, killing and wound- 
ing a number, and capturing three hundred and fifty. The First and 
Twentieth Kentucky infantry fell upon Kirby Smith's rear guard in Clay 
county, killed and captured one hundred men, and cut off one hundred and 
fifty head of cattle. Morgan's cavalry, turning westward and passing in the 
rear of Buell's army, destroyed long sections of the Louisville & Nashville 
railroad, and burnt the bridges and trestlework south of Bowling Green. 



638 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



CHAPTEE XXTIII. 

(1863-65.) 



Extremes of martial law. 

The decision of Judge L. Watson 
Andrews. 

Woodward defeated in Christian county. 

Troubles about slaves. 

Buell must occupy Nashville. 

Removed, and General Rosecrans put in 
command. 

Morgan raids Kentucky again. 

Federal cavalry retaliate. 

Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, 
January I, 1863. 

Kentucky Unionists protest. 

Indemnity taxes on Southern sympathiz- 
ers. 

Democratic convention broken up at 
Frankfort by Gilbert's bayonets. 

Bayonets intrude upon ballots. 

Enduring loyalty. 

Dissensions in the Union ranks. 

Bragg's army concentrated at Murfrees- 
boro. 

Operations of Morgan's cavalry. 

Federal army moves out to attack 

Great battle of Stone river. 

The disastrous charge of General Breck- 
inridge. 

Kentucky troops engaged. 

General Hanson killed. 

His life. 

General William Preston. 

Bramlelte governor. 

Colonel Cluke captures Mount Sterling. 

Pegram and Wolford. 

Former defeated. 

Cluke defeated. 

Other cavalry fights. 

Morgan's great raid through Kentucky, 
Indiana, and Ohio. 

Defeat by Colonel Moore. 

Cross the Ohio at Brandenburg. 

Raid to Cincinnati. 



On to Buffington island. 

Disasters and surrender. 

Imprisoned in the Ohio penitentiary. 

Captain Hines conceives and executes 
an escape. 

Morgan's course. 

His new command. 

His last raid into Kentucky. 

Successes and disasters. 

Returns to East Tennessee. 

Betrayed and killed at Greenville, Ten- 
nessee, through a revengeful woman. 

Seat of war transferred south. 

Burnside commands in Kentucky. 

General Boyle resigns. 

Kentucky troops enlisted. 

Colored enlistments. 

Colonels Wolford and Jacob arrested for 
protesting. 

I-egislative protest. 

Drafts and substitutes 

Brokerage in men. 

Lawless anarchy. 

"Guerrilla" bands appear. 

Outrages. 

Provocations. 

Confederate soldiers' condition. 

Corruptions and abuses in high official 
quarters in Kentucky. 

The outrages, murders, and extortions of 
these equal those of the brigand gangs on 
either side. 

Legislature votes five million dollars for 
defense. 

General Burbridge carries out General 
Sherman's cruel orders. 

Confederates taken out of prison and 
shot, by General Burbridge's orders. 

Reign of terror brought upon all peace- 
ful citizens. 

Provost -marshal government and elec- 
tions. 



KENTUCKY UNDER MARTIAL LAW, 



639 



Judge Robertson elected to the Appel- 
late bench. 

Women and children arrested. 

Resistance to the enlistment of slaves. 

Governor Bramlette resists the lawless 
•orders of General Ewing. 

President revokes latter. 

A commission finds General E. A. Paine 
and associates at Paducah and Mayfield 
guilty of flagrant crimes. 

Burbridge's *' hog order," 

Forrest repulsed at Paducah. 

General Burbridge leads four thousand 
men to attack Saltville. 

Defeated by General John S. Williams. 

Great battles South and East. 

Petty strife in Kentucky. 



One million men to two hundred thou- 
sand. 

Lee surrenders. 

Other surrenders follow. 

Lincoln re-elected. 

Coin and currency. 

Senator Guthrie. 

Kentuckians enlisted. 

Committee visit the president and ask 
the removal of Burbridge. 

Thirteenth amendment. 

Physical stature of Kentuckians. 

Statistical tables. 

Endurance and courage on both sides. 

First Kentucky brigade statistics. 

Losses of life by the war. 

Combats in the State of Kentucky. 



Kentucky was now again restored to the undisputed sway of martial law. 
The late experiences of the Confederate invasion gave new pretexts for the 
exercise of the severest measures of repression, and of punishment for 
actual or alleged disloyalty. Even General Buell, hitherto so conservative 
and profoundly regardful of civil law, issued a severe order about this date, 
and charged General Boyle with its execution, that all persons who had 
actively abetted the invasion of Kentucky must be arrested, sent to Vicks- 
burg, and forbidden to return. In some communities large assessments were 
made on citizens of Southern sympathy, under plea of reimbursing Union 
men for the depredations of guerrillas. In Casey ville district, Union county, 
thirty-five thousand dollars were thus taken under military license under this 
plea, and pretended to have been disbursed to injured Union men. Two 
hundred Southern sympathizers under arrest were, on November 6th, sent 
north of the Ohio river by Provost-Marshal Dent, on condition that they 
would remain out of the State. 

About this time Judge L. Watson Andrews, of the Mason circuit court, 
at Maysville, decided the Federal confiscation act unconstitutional, showing 
an inflexible courage in the support of the civil jurisdictions, and asserting 
the supremacy of civil law in the midst of the rage of war. 

On November 9th, General Ransom's Federal brigade, in a spirited 
contest near Garrettsburg, Christian county, defeated Colonel Woodward's 
Confederate force, eight hundred strong. 

There had, by this time, been shown quite a disposition, among the 
Northern officers and troops in Kentucky, to interfere with and disaffect the 
slaves without regard to the political antecedents of their owners. After 
frequent complaint. Commandant Boyle issued an order forbidding all offi- 
cers and privates to interfere or intermeddle with the slaves in any way, 
or allow fugitive slaves to come into the Union camps. Congressman 
Charles A. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, in a published card requested Kentuck- 



640 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ians who had slaves taken from them by the United States army, to send 
him a sworn statement of the facts. His object was to have some law 
passed by which slaves thus wrongfully taken might be peaceably recovered 
or accounted for. Colonel John H. McHenry, of the Seventeenth Ken- 
tucky infantry, was about this time dismissed from the United States service 
for issuing an order returning slaves to their masters from his camp, in 
violation of an additional article of war. 

^In the language of a late historian : " This Confederate movement into 
Kentucky marks the high tide of the civil war, and the retreat of Bragg 
was a part of the great reflux of that wave. The crushing defeat of Nelson's 
forces by Kirby Smith came on the same day as the second Confederate 
victory at Manassas. The abandonment of Munfordville by Bragg, worse 
than a defeat, came about the same time of the great battle of Antietam. 
The battle of Perryville completed the dramatic campaigns which crowned 
the misfortune of the Confederacy. Both the army of the Potomac and 
the army of the West were compelled to retreat southward into their strong- 
holds. Their armies were checked, but not broken, and the Federal forces 
were not able to give a crushing pursuit to the forces they had beaten back. 
Far better than the Northern armies, the troops of the Confederacy with- 
stood the trials of defeat." 

It now became imperative that Buell should make a timely march for the 
protection of Nashville, lest Bragg, penetrating Tennessee with an army yet 
formidable, might turn upon that important base and inflict a crushing blow 
in an exposed quarter. But the army which Buell had so successfully led 
was not destined to return to Nashville under his command. The bolt of 
wrath which had been forged at Washington was only suspended in its exe- 
cution for a time. The opportune time had come, and Buell was at last 
displaced from command of the army, and General Rosecrans, who had 
recently won some successes near Corinth, Mississippi, was appointed to 
succeed him. Both armies having reached safe destinations in Tennessee, 
a period of inaction ensued for the next two months. The only military 
operation of interest to this history, for the remainder of the year 1862, 
was another brief raid of Morgan's cavalry into Kentucky. On the 2 2d 
of December, he started on this adventure with about three thousand men. 
The lessons of experience had taught the Federal commanders to leave 
large garrisons at the important points on this line from Louisville to Nash- 
ville. There were more than thrice Morgan's numbers guarding the weak 
points of this line, but they were principally infantry troops, an arm that is 
worthless in dealing with such raids. 

Slipping adroitly by the larger garrisons of the Federal forces, Morgan 
managed to capture first Glasgow, and then Elizabethtown, the garrison at 
the latter place surrendering without any serious struggle ; next, though 
closely pursued, he captured the block-houses protecting the bridges at 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealths, p. 317 ; Duke's History. 



V/ 



THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 64I 

Muldraugh's hill, where he burned the trestlework and destroyed the track. 
In this district, he destroyed two thousand two hundred and fifty feet of 
bridges. Thence he turned toward Bardstown, but finding strong bodies 
of troops at every important point, he made a swift retreat into Tennessee, 
without being brought to battle. 

While crossing the Rolling Fork of Salt river, Morgan's rear guard and 
some detachments, amounting to about eight hundred men, were attacked 
by about seven thousand Federal troops. They should have been captured, 
but by a brilliant attack on the advancing force, followed by a swift retreat, 
they were enabled to rejoin their command on the other side of the river. 

Morgan's tactics were becoming suggestive to the other side, who began 
to imitate them. General Carter, with eleven hundred Federal cavalry, 
set out, on the 25th of December, for a raid through South-west Virginia. 
Striking the Tennessee & Virginia railroad, he destroyed the great bridge 
at Blountsville, and captured three hundred Confederate troops there, under 
Major McDowell. Turning westwardly, he next burned the bridge over 
the Wataga. This, with the injury done the track of the railroad in other 
ways, required many weeks to repair the line for transportation. 

1 While this and other Federal cavalry raids of the kind had not the 
brilliancy and skill of Morgan's, they became very effective in co-operation 
with the movements of the main armies against the Confederacy. Indeed, 
it is doubtful if the same number of men on either side, during the war, 
accomplished nearly as much as the troops of Morgan. His force, after the 
organization at Knoxville, numbered from eight hundred to thirty-five hun- 
dred, and did not average in the time two thousand men. Fed and foraged 
upon the enemy, it is fairly estimated that this force served to neutralize ten 
times their numbers on the side of the enemy. The originality of a blend- 
ing of the advantages of cavalry, infantry, and artillery into a concentrated 
unit of military power was, perhaps, never before as successfully done. 
His force was essentially horsed infantry in flying columns, with the support, 
when needed, of adequate artillery. 

With the close of the year, the country was upon the eve of an event 
which, from the beginning of the war, had been regarded as inevitable by 
the more positive sentiment of both the Northern and Southern elements in 
this great contest, but which that class of Union men in the border Southern 
States had been encouraged to believe and had persuaded themselves would 
never be among the issues of the war. On the ist day of January, 1863, 
President Lincoln issued his emancipation proclamation, which he had 
announced in a qualified form before, on September 22, 1862 : " As a fit 
and necessary war measure for suppressing the rebellion, I order and declare 
that all persons held as slaves within the designated States now in rebellion 
are and henceforward shall be free, and the military and naval authorities 
will recognize and maintain their freedom." It is true that this proclama- 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealths, p. 328. 

41 



642 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tion nominally affected the institution of slavery only in the seceded States, 
and in its terms made an exception of Kentucky, yet the practical effect 
was to leave the institution a mere wreck in the sea of war in Kentucky. 
As pointedly said by Shaler, himself a Kentucky Unionist : 

^"This proclamation was felt as a blow by a large part of the Union 
people of Kentucky. Their view was that the rebels were breaking the 
Constitution, while the armies to which they were giving their support were 
endeavoring to maintain that contract. This proclamation was an act that 
put them, as well as their enemies, in an extra constitutional attitude. They* 1 
felt that if both sides were to fight outside the Constitution, their position ■ 
lost the moral and historic value it had at the outset. These difficulties, 
brought about by the proclamation, were naturally increased by the constant 
interference of the military with unoffending citizens who were suspected of 
rebel sympathies. The Union party and its Legislature, tenaciously cling- 
ing to the civil law, deprecated this action, and by frequent remonstrances 
with the Federal authorities, from time to time, abated this evil. These 
interferences with the civil law took two flagrantly unjust forms — the taxing 
of so-called rebel sympathizers for the damages done by guerrillas or by the 
raiding parties of the enemy. It is impossible to devise any system under 
the pretense of law that brings about more irritating injustice than does this 
often-tried, but ever-failing, measure. The outrages which the so-called 
rebel sympathizers were forced to make good were utterly beyond their 
control. No American people have ever been subjected to as iniquitous 
oppression as this system brought about. The other form of the evil arose 
from the interference of the military powers at the elections. This was even 
more unnecessary and more irritating to the lawful Union men than the 
confiscation of property. For centuries they and their fathers had guarded 
the freedom of the elections as a sacred heritage. There was no time since 
the overthrow of neutrality that the Union men did not have a majority of 
two-thirds of the voters ; therefore, there was no need of interference. 

"One of the most flagrant cases of interference with purely political 
action, but only one of very many, was that which took place in Frank- 
fort. A convention of the so-called Democratic party, composed of two 
hundred delegates from one-third of the counties, met to nominate a State 
ticket. They represented that portion of the people who were mostly in 
sympathy with the rebellion, though they honestly denied all thought of 
secession. They were refused the use of the legislative hall for their meetings 
by the Union Legislature, and were denounced by the Union papers as 
secessionists. Acting upon this public opinion, Colonel Gilbert proceeded 
to break up the convention by military force, ordering the delegates to leave 
the city, and to refrain frorri all ' seditious and noisy conversation.' This 
high-handed outrage had a great effect upon public opinion in Kentucky. 
The Senate passed a series of resolutions, on motion of Hon. Charles T. 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealths, p. 332. 



DISAFFECTION AMONG UNION SUPPORTERS. 643 

Worthington, to the effect that such interference was not desired by the 
Union men, and that it ' was dangerous in its tendencies, and should not 
pass unrebuked.' In the August election, there was the same interference 
on the part of the military with the election. This last outrage had not even 
the palliation of effectiveness. Only a few polling places were under the 
control of the troops. It exasperated the Union men without restraining the 
Confederate sympathizers. Thousands of Union men who had given their 
property and their blood to the cause of the Constitution lost heart and their 
interest in the struggle. They had supposed that they were fighting, not for 
the domination of armies, but for the maintenance of law, for the welfare 
of the country, and not for the supremacy of a political party that appeared 
willing to destroy the Commonwealth if it stood in the way of its purposes. 

" So far from condemning this defection of spirit which came upon the 
people from the overthrow of their laws and subordination of their courts to 
the military arm, we should rather praise the independence of mind of men 
who, in the midst of battle, could keep in their hearts this reverence for the 
foundations of their political life." 

These views from an intelligent source will strike one as dispassionate 
and just, yet in the emergencies which were born of a gigantic civil strife 
over the issues of national life and death, and on the disputed battle-ground 
of the two contending sections, it would be an anomaly in history if there 
were no instances of encroachments upon the constitutions and the laws, 
both Federal and State — not that there need be or should be, but such a 
war must stir the deepest passions of men, and of many men, who will be 
regardless and reckless of the restraints of constitutions and law when these 
stand in the way of the accomplishment of their purposes and desires. As 
will be seen further on, this fully-developed phase of the war had the effect 
more and more to estrange and divide the great Union majority element in 
the State, which hitherto had unitedly supported the Federal cause ; and this 
division, in time, assumed more decidedly the form of antagonism between 
the civil authorities of the State and the mihtary command of the depart- 
ment of the Ohio, of which Kentucky was a part. 

In the last days of December, the army of the Cumberland, having been 
massed at Nashville under its new commander. General Rosecrans, was put 
in readiness to meet again the army of General Bragg, then concentrated at 
Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This important episode of the war does not legit- 
imately claim mention in Kentucky history, as it pertains to a contest upon 
the soil of another State, except for the numbers and distinction of Kentucky 
soldiers in both armies who took part in it. The cavalry forces of Morgan 
and of Forrest for two weeks had operated in the country around Nashville 
and on the lines of railroads diverging from that center, and as far out on 
the Louisville & Nashville railroad as Elizabethtown and Muldraugh's Hill, 
Kentucky, harassing the enemy, destroying his supplies, and cutting off his 
means of transportation. For the same length of time, General John C. 



644 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Breckinridge had anticipated the arrival of Bragg's army and held Murfrees- 
boro with his division of four thousand men just from his campaign in the 
South-west. On December 31st, the Federal army, forty-five thousand 
strong, joined the issue of battle with that of General Bragg, numbering 
thirty-five thousand present. On that day, the Federal army was driven 
back, with heavy loss, from all its positions from two to three miles, leaving 
thirty-one pieces of artillery and the dead and wounded, with nearly four 
thousand prisoners, in the enemy's hands. The next day, these relative 
positions were held by the two armies, with but little further fighting. On 
January 2d, the third day of battle, General Breckinridge, having been 
ordered with his division to assault a strongly fortified position of the enemy, 
executed one of the bravest and most brilliant charges recorded in the his- 
tory of tke war. The Federal forces were dislodged with the bayonet and 
driven in confusion and rout, with great slaughter. In following the retreat- 
ing foe, the victorious troops of the command were drawn into range of over 
fifty pieces of artillery, which poured a deadly fire of shot and shell into 
their ranks. Breckinridge was compelled to withdraw his forces from this 
murderous fire, which threatened them with annihilation. This he did in 
good order. The armies remained in position during the fourth day, doing 
but little fighting. Re-enforcements having reached the Federals, General 
Bragg quietly withdrew his army, taking with him his prisoners, captured 
guns, and stores. The Federal loss was about nine thousand killed and 
wounded, and four thousand missing. Of the Kentucky troops in the Fed- 
eral army, the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, 
Fifteenth, and Twenty-third regiments lost nine hundred and eleven men. 
The Confederate loss in killed and 
wounded was nearly nine thousand, 
of which Breckinridge's division lost 
twenty-one hundred and forty. Among 
those most lamented who fell in the 
ranks of this division was the brave 
and gallant General Hanson, whose 
death cast a gloom over the command 
with which he had most gallantly 
fought. 

Roger W. Hanson was born at ^^^^^^^^B^^^^^^^^^P^'' 
Winchester, Kentucky, August 27, 
1827. His early life was that of the 
typical Kentucky boy of that day, 
marked with strong muscular activity, 
of impatient and imperious will, and of exuberant flow of spirits, a combi- 
nation of energies capable of bestowing great force of character, but very 
dangerous to a youth surrounded with an abundance of temptations and 
opportunities. At the age of twenty, he was among the first volunteers 




GENERAL ROGER W. HANSON. 



GENERAL PRESTON'S HEROISM, 645 

for the Mexican war, and went out as first lieutenant in the company of 
Captain Jo'.in S. Williams, which so distinguished its record in the storming 
of Cerro Gordo. At the close of this service, he returned to Winchester, 
and very soon after was wounded in the hips, in a duel with a gentleman, 
which gave him a limping gait for life. He devoted himself in this year 
to the study of law, but the California gold fever having broken out, he 
was one of the thousands who left home to seek sudden fortune in the 
modern Ophir, which had opened its wondrous treasures to the adventure 
and enterprise of the world. Disappointed, he returned to his Kentucky 
home and entered upon the practice of law. Some lime after, he moved 
to Lexington. In 1856, he was one of the two electors-at-large on the 
Fillmore ticket. His forensic powers in this campaign gave him great 
reputation and prestige, and the next year he became the American candi- 
date for Congress, opposed by James B. Clay, the Democratic nominee, 
who proved also to possess rare powers of elocution and logic. Hanson 
was defeated and went back to his practice. In 1859-60, he lent a 
powerful aid in the canvass of Joshua F. Bell for governor, and for Bell 
and Everett, the presidential Whig candidates. When the crisis of dis- 
union came, on the election of Mr. Lincoln, his convictions and sentiments 
were for the L'nion, and his voice was heard in behalf of its preservation — 
and against secession. Xext, he leaned to the device of neutrality. Like 
myriads of others, his sympathies were Southern, and as he witnessed the 
demonstrations for coercion, and the wide and dangerous latitude assumed 
in measures therefor, he was at last induced to give his services, his heart, 
and finally his life for the cause of the South, He entered the Confederate 
service, and was made colonel of the Second Kentucky regiment, and after- 
ward promoted to be brigadier-general of the First Kentucky brigade. His- 
tory has followed his fortunes, with his command, from Bowling Green to 
Donelson, and from the South-west to Murfreesboro, where he gave up his 
life in the midst of a strife and carnage of battle, the fiercest and bloodiest 
of all civil wars. 

General William Preston, distinguished in the political, diplomatic, and 
military history of the country, led another of the three brigades of Breckin- 
ridge's division in this murderous charge into the jaws of death. By sen- 
iority, he was second in command to General Breckinridge, and bravely 
carried forward his men in front of the fire of twenty pieces of artillery'. 
Several of his staff were killed and wounded and his own clothing pierced. 
One of his regiments faltering, General Preston seized their colors and rode 
in their front toward the enemy and rallied them again. And not less brave 
and skillful were his displays of heroic generalship on the field of Chicka- 
mauga, where he commanded a division composed of three brigades, under 
Gracie, Trigg, and Kelly, respectively. Of the final assault on General 
Thomas' strong position, the correspondent of the London Times wrote : 
"General Preston's bearing on the slope of Missionary Ridge, under the 



646 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



setting sun of the 20th of September, will, if ever the American war be- 
comes really historical, rank with that of Dessaix recovering the lost battle 
of Marengo, or with any other famous deeds of arms ever witnessed on the 
earth. Slowly, and under a withering fire, one of Preston's brigades, com- 
manded by Gracie, and fighting its first pitched battle, deployed into line. 
As they ascended the hill, they reeled and staggered under the iron tempest 
which rent them, and General Gracie, turning to General Preston, exclaimed 
in agony : ' We are cut to pieces 1 ' Calm as though he had seen a hundred 
fights. General Preston replied : ' You have not suffered half such a loss 
as, my brigade sustained at Murfreesboro. Tell your men to fix bayo- 
nets, and take them at it again.' The order was given, and nobly was it 
obeyed. Right up and over the slope they went ; their comrades swept 
upon the Federal flank. Hindman and Kershaw gallantly did their part. 
The Confederate right again advanced and drove the Federals from their 
works. The whole of Missionary Ridge was gained, and the Federals, in 
one long, confused, and huddled mass, burst down the ridge, and along 
every road and by-path they could find, and never stopped until they reached 
Chattanooga. One trophy of the desperate strife was shown by General 
Gracie's men — the flag of an Alabama regiment, pierced by eighty-three 
bullet-holes and the staff severed at three places, but carried to the last by 
the same color-sergeant." 

Not long after the battle of Chickamauga, Maximilian having entered 
Mexico and occupied the throne of the improvised empire, supported 
by the armies of Napoleon III., General Preston was appointed minister 
to that Government by President Davis, in the interests of the Confed- 
eracy. Important matters of diplomacy carried him to England and 
France to confer with the Confederate ministers. Mason and Slidell, pro- 
longing his absence a year. Return- iiiipiiiiiiniiBiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirihiiiiirj.iiiiiiiiiiryiiii'iiiiiiiiira 
ing, he entered Texas by way of j 
Matamoras, and, before crossing the 
Mississippi, learned of Lee's surren- i 
der. General Preston's history in j 
Congress, and as minister to Spain, as 
well as other important stations, is 
well known. Of magnificent personal ";' 
appearance, of courtly bearing and | 
address, and of unsurpassed elegance | 
of conversational powers, General 
Preston was one of the most impress- [ 
ive men of the country. In general ! 
lore and information, in chaste and |; , f 

classic elocution, and in the plausible I 
force of logic, he ranked among the I 
first men of the nation. general ben hardin helm. 




ELECTION OF 1863. 647 

On the ensanguined field of Chickamauga fell General Ben Hardin 
Helm, another of the distinguished and favorite sons of Kentucky, bravely- 
leading the Kentucky brigade in Breckinridge's division. Mortally wounded 
in the front and midst of the battle, as it most fiercely raged, he breathed 
out his life in martyrdom to the cause he had espoused, at midnight of the 
same day. Promoted for gallantry and efficiency since the beginning of 
the war to a brigadier commission, he had, shortly before the concentration 
for Chickamauga, held independent commands of the East division of the 
Gulf department, and afterward of the post of Chattanooga. The death 
of few Kentuckians was more lamented, or so sorely felt to the cause of 
his preference. 

At the State election in 1863, Thomas E. Bramlette was elected gov- 
ernor, and Colonel R. T. Jacob lieutenant-governor, Joshua F. Bell having 
declined the nomination at the State convention previously held. Both 
these gentlemen had supported the Union as commanders of regiments. 

Colonel Cluke's Confederate cavalry, detached from Morgan's command, 
ventured a raid through Kentucky in March, and on the 21st, after a des- 
perate fight of four hours, captured Mount Sterling, with four hundred and 
twenty-eight prisoners, two hundred and twenty wagons laden with valuable 
military stores, five hundred mules, and nearly one thousand stand of arms. 
On the 24th, another body of Confederate cavalry, under General Pegram, 
occupied Danville. Colonel Wolford's cavalry resisted their advance all day, 
falling back toward Lexington. There was a loss of thirty or forty men on 
each side. On the same day, General Humphrey Marshall's forces made 
an attack upon General White's Federal troops, ten miles from Louisa, and 
the latter fell back on the main body. On the 30th, Colonel Charles J. 
Walker's Tenth Kentucky cavalry defeated Colonel Cluke's Confederate 
cavalry, six miles east of Mount Sterling, and drove them beyond Licking 
river. On the same day, General Gilmore, with twelve hundred Federal 
cavalry, including Wolford's regiment, defeated Pegram's Confederate 
cavalry, causing a loss to them of two hundred and fifty in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners; the Federal loss was about sixty. On May nth, a spirited 
engagement in Wayne county between Colonel Jacob's Ninth Kentucky 
cavalry and eight hundred of General Morgan's Confederate cavalry, 
resulted in the Federals falling back across Greasy creek, with a loss of 
over forty men, the loss of the enemy being about thirty. 

About the middle of June, Colonel Peter Everett, with a battalion of 
Confederate cavalry, occupied Maysville, capturing considerable arms and 
stores. After several skirmishes in Mason, Bath, and Fleming counties, 
he was defeated near Morehead, Kentucky, by a regiment of Kentucky 
cavalry. This desultory fighting seems to have been the main experience 
of the war in Kentucky for the first half of the year 1863. 

^In the month of June, General Morgan was gathering his clans and 

I Duke's History, p. 414; Collins' Annals of Kentucky. 



648 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

preparing for the most formidable ride in the rear of the Federal lines which 
had yet been known to the military operations of the West. The Fifth 
Kentucky regiment, under Colonel D. Howard Smith, and the Sixth Ken- 
tucky, under Colonel Warren Grigsby, had beeji added to Morgan's com- 
mand, which now consisted of two brigades. The first was composed of 
the Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Kentucky, and Ninth Tennessee, and 
the Second brigade of the Third, Eighth, Eleventh, and Tenth Kentucky, 
making a total force of about twenty-five hundred men. The expedition, 
conceived and mapped out, intended an extensive raid through Kentucky 
and across the Ohio river through Indiana and Ohio, for the purpose of 
diverting Federal re-enforcements to the army on the Potomac, and to Gen- 
eral Rosecrans, in Tennessee, to break up the lines of transportation, and 
to capture the Federal troops detached to guard these lines in Kentucky. 
On the 2d of July, this force crossed the Cumberland river, near Burksville. 
Twelve miles above, at Marrowbone, Morgan was confronted by a large 
body of Federal cavalry, under General Judah; these were defeated and 
driven back, until a temporary check was given to Morgan by a battery 
of artillery. Moving on through Columbia, on the Lebanon pike, the Con- 
federates were resisted by Colonel Moore, of the Twenty-fifth Michigan 
infantry, entrenched on a bluff in a bend of Green River. On a summons 
to surrender. Colonel Moore answered, that "The 4th of July was a bad 
day for surrenders, and he would rather not." The regiment of Colonel 
Chenault imprudently assaulted this strong position, and was several times 
repulsed. The Confederates finally withdrew, with a loss of nearly one 
hundred men, among whom were Colonel Chenault and Major Brent, killed, 
and passed on toward Lebanon. This place was defended by three regi- 
ments, including Colonel Hanson's Twentieth Kentucky. After a hotly 
contested fight, the Federals were defeated and captured. Passing on 
through Bardstown and Garnettsville, in Meade county, the entire force 
crossed the Ohio river at Brandenburg, Kentucky. Previous to this, a 
detachment, under the skillful leadership of Captain Thomas H. Hines, had 
explored this portion of Indiana, and reported to Morgan that the way was 
clear as far out as Seymour. Yet some resistance was offered at the crossing 
of his forces by irregular troops hastily gathered, aided by a gunboat. 
These were driven off and dispersed. Passing on to Corydon and Salem, 
they reached Vienna, on the Indianapolis & Jeffersonville railroad. Here 
Ellsworth, Morgan's telegraph operator, took possession of the office at the 
station, and put himself in communication with Louisville and Indianapolis, 
and learned that the entire country around him was thoroughly aroused and 
in consternation. Orders had been issued to the militia to fell timber and 
blockade all the roads likely to be traveled, to arm and organize, and to fall 
in with the troops and resist the movements of Morgan in every way pos- 
sible. Morgan moved on eastward to Paris, where Colonel Smith was 
detached to make a feint against Madison, in order to hold troops there 




morgan's raid. 649 

^ho might prove troublesome if they came out. Moving around Vernon, 
where a strong Federal force was stationed, and through Versailles and Har- 
rison, he marched on directly to the rear of Cincinnati. By this time the 
entire population of Indiana, Ohio, and North Kentucky had become 
intensely excited over the feats of the impudent and daring raider. Troops 
were being rapidly concentrated around him on every side, by the thousands. 
All the gunboats or naval forces on the river were put in active motion ; 
troops were transported by water and rail to points in his front, to intercept 
his advance, while the guards at all the crossings of the river were heavily 
strengthened. Passing around Cincinnati in force, Morgan directed his 
course eastward, through Batavia and Williamsburg, to Piketon, on Scioto 
river, opposed and harassed more and more each day. From the Scioto, 
his final march around through Jackson and Binton brought him to the Ohio 
river again at Portland, above the mouth of the Great Kanawha, in West 
Virginia. By this time the skirmishing and fighting with the troops, and 
overcoming obstacles thrown in the way by the militia, were almost continu- 
ous. Unable yet to effect a crossing of the river, worn down wiih fatigue 
and fighting, this command divided; and much demoralized with the gloomy 
prospect of escape across the river, Morgan moved up to Pomeroy, above 
Bufiington island, for a last desperate effort to escape to the south bank of 
the Ohio. Here, however, he was vigorously attacked by superior forces 
of infantry and cavalry, supported by gunboats, which had arrived in time 
to participate. All hope of escape had now apparently vanished. After 
fighting and maneuvering to the last point of desperation, Morgan surren- 
dered with the greater portion of his command. About one-third of the 
command at different points along the Ohio, and near Bufiington island, had 
managed to effect their escape across the river in detachments. Four com- 
panies, under Captain Kirkpatrick, passed safely through West Virginia, and 
escaped to the vicinity of Knoxville. The prisoners taken were carried back 
to Cmcinnati. Morgan and his ofiicers, including Colonels Duke, Ward, 
Smith, Morgan, and Hoffman, Majors Elliott and Bullock, and Captains 
Hines and Thorpe, were incarcerated in the penitentiary of Ohio, at Colum- 
bus, by order of General Burnside, with the instruction to Governor Todd 
that they be subjected to the usual prison discipline. 

This imprisonment continued until the latter part of November, when 
the ingenuity and enterprise of Captain Hines conceived and executed a 
plan of escape by excavating a passage-way through the floors and under 
the walls of the prison. On the 28th of November, seven of the captives — 
General Morgan and Captains Thomas H. Hines, Jacob C. Bennett, Ralph 
Sheldon, James D. Hockersmith, G. S. McGee, and Samuel B. Taylor — 
passed safely through the subterranean passage-way and effected their escape. 
Four days after, Taylor and Sheldon were recaptured near Louisville. 
Morgan and Hines boarded a train for Cincinnati, crossed in a skiff to Lud- 
low in Kentucky ; thence, by easy stages, they passed as disguised travel- 



650 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ers through Owen, Henry, Shelby, Nelson, Green, and Cumberland counties 
safely into Tennessee. 

This raid of Morgan's is said to have been undertaken against the coun- 
sel and views of General Bragg, who would have confined Morgan's opera- 
tions to Kentucky. Though Morgan visited Richmond, he was received 
with apparent coldness and indifference by the president of the Confeder- 
acy. It was not until the spring of 1864 that he was again given a com- 
mand, in South-western Virginia. This command was made up of two 
cavalry brigades, under General Cosby and Colonel Henry S. Giltner and 
some militia reserves of that region. The material of his command was 
good, but Morgan seemed, since the breaking up of his old command, to 
have lost much of his prestige and brilliant fortune. In June, 1864, he 
undertook his last raid into Kentucky with a command of three brigades, 
making a total of twenty-five hundred men, under Colonels Giltner, Alston, 
and D. Howard Smith. Passing through Pound Gap, he pushed on to 
Mount Sterling, which place was captured, with nearly four hundred prison- 
ers and stores. Dividing his forces into several detachments, a portion of 
his command, under Colonel Giltner, was suddenly surprised and attacked by 
General Burbridge, who had made an extraordinary march of ninety miles 
in thirty hours, with a largely-superior force. A desperate fight ensued, in 
which the Confederates lost over three hundred in killed, wounded, and 
captured. Morgan had moved upon and captured Lexington, with large 
military stores, on the loth. From thence to Georgetown, he moved upon 
Cynthiana, with his forces again united, where he captured the garrison and 
entire command of General Hobson, together nearly two thousand men. 
His following, now weakened by losses and by details to guard prisoners and 
wagon trains and to destroy the railroad, was again attacked by General 
Burbridge, whose command had been re-enforced to near four thousand 
men. The fighting was disastrous, yet in the vicinity of Cynthiana. The 
Confederates were defeated, with heavy losses, and Morgan, gathering up 
his broken forces, retreated through Flemingsburg and West Liberty to Ab- 
ingdon, Virginia. 

Operating with his command in East Tennessee, on the 3d of Septem- 
ber, 1864, his troops lay encamped around Greenville, ready to move on 
Bull's Gap the next day. Morgan made his headquarters at Mrs. Williams' 
in Greenville. A daughter-in-law, a younger Mrs. Williams, of intense 
Union sympathies, and enraged at Morgan for some alleged harsh treatment 
to a Federal officer, mounted her horse and rode in the direction of Bull's 
Gap, at the first rumors of the approach of the Confederate forces, to give 
the alarm to the enemy. Before midnight, the Federal force moved out to 
make a- surprise attack upon Morgan at Greenville, doubtless directed by 
the information given. About daylight, one hundred Federal cavalry dashed 
into Greenville and surrounded the headquarters of General Morgan and 
staff. Finding escape hopeless. General Morgan passed into the garden of 



KENTUCKY FURNISHES RECRUITS. 65 1 

Mrs. Williams, where he was discovered by his enemy and shot to death. 
Thus, on the 4th of September, in this little village of East Tennessee, fell 
the great partisan leader, whose genius and daring had left him a name con- 
spicuous among the remarkable characters produced in this period. 

The events occurring for the remainder of the year 1863 were of much 
the same nature as those we have before described in both the civil and 
Diilitary affairs within the State. The military operations for the year seem 
to have been transferred to the territory of Southern States beyond the bor- 
ders of Kentucky. Large calls for new volunteers to recruit the Federal 
armies upon the Potomac and on the Cumberland were made, of which 
Kentucky furnished her quota, besides furnishing many more for the sup- 
port of the Union authorities in the State. General Burnside, command- 
ing this department, on July 31st, declared martial law over the State, " for 
the purpose only of protecting the rights of loyal citizens and the freedom 
of suffrage, and preventing any disloyal person from voting at the election 
on Monday, August the 3d." 

Under the military surveillance of the election, the Union candidates 
were all elected with little opposition, excepting the three counties of Boone, 
Carroll, and Trimble. In January, General Boyle having resigned was 
relieved as military commandant, and General Ammen succeeded him. 
On February the 1st, President Lincoln, by proclamation, ordered a draft on 
March loth, for five hundred thousand men, to serve three years or during 
the war. Adjutant-General Finnell's report at this time showed that Ken- 
tucky had already sent in the United States service 35,760 infantry, 15,362 
cavalry, and 823 artillerymen, besides 2,957 sixty-days' men, a total of 
54,902 men. On February the 29th, Provost-Marshal General James B. 
Fry ordered the enrollment without delay of all colored males of military 
age, in Kentucky. The enrollment of colored troops was denounced by 
some of the most active and leading Federal officers in Kentucky, among 
whom were Colonel Frank Wolford and Lieutenant-Governor Jacob. For lan- 
guage used in condemnation of this policy. Colonel Wolford was arrested ; 
and afterward was dishonorably dismissed from the United States military 
service, for speaking disrespectfully of the president, and for disloyalty; but 
in June, was commissioned by Governor Bramlette to raise a regiment of 
men. Governor Bramlette, by proclamation, recommended the people to 
submit quietly to the negro enrollment; and General Burbridge, now in 
military command, issued a general order for their enlistment, to be sent to 
camps of instruction and drill outside of the State. 

On February the 5th, the Legislature passed a resolution of protest 
against the enlistment of Kentucky negroes, and requested the president to 
remove the camps of such soldiers from the limits of the State. These were 
but expressions of a sentiment, the instinctive outgrowth of the relation of 
the negro in slavery, of the property rights in him, and of the prejudices 
against his uses in any position of equality with the white race. But this 



652 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

opposition of a prejudiced sentiment gradually gave way with the familiarity 
of the practice of such enlistments, and the people became reconciled, or 
passively submissive, to this expediency of the Government; and other cir- 
cumstances made this usage more tolerable to the people of Kentucky. 
The increased demands and calls of the Federal Government for new levies 
of troops, to recruit and strengthen the armies in the field, had exhausted 
the ardor and resources of the volunteer element, and compelled the Gov- 
ernment to the alternative of decimating drafts. As by lot, many white citi- 
zens of means were among the drafted, who were unwilling or unprepared 
to enter upon a soldier's life. 

A great demand sprang up for substitutes, which were allowed and ac- 
cepted by the Government. These substitutes came now in great demand, 
at an appreciable market value, in every part of the State. From seven 
hundred to fifteen hundred dollars were offered and paid by citizens upon 
whom the lot of draft had fallen, according to the demand and supply of 
the community. Quite a brokerage speculation sprang up among the horde 
of mercenary men who swarmed out of the ranks of citizenship and of 
official and military ranks to seize upon the thousand opportunities that a 
civil war affords of speculative gain. This dealing in substitutes, a sudden 
source of profit, was largely carried on by provost-marshals or some favored 
second who could control this singular traffic in human bodies. At this 
time, the negro was still the slave property of his master in Kentucky, as 
the emancipation proclamation did not apply to this State. As the destruc- 
tion of the institution seemed inevitable and near at hand, and as the slaves 
were unmerchantable otherwise, many owners seized upon the opportunity 
to convert this species of property into money, and bargained with the re- 
cruiting authorities, conceding a good percentage of the sale money. But 
few masters were distinctively inclined to thus dispose of their slaves, for 
whom they entertained humane and kindly feelings of attachment ; but the 
new policy of enlisting negroes, so captivating to the African a lifetime in 
bondage, was rapidly sweeping from the country the negro males capable of 
military service. Their owners felt that such slaves would soon desert them 
under the irresistible influences of the recruiting agencies, who would transfer 
them to the ranks of the Union army. 

In the earliest days of 1864, the natural fruitage of protracted civil war 
became more cruelly and distressingly manifest than at any previous time. So 
intensely and fiercely were the passions of men inflamed by constant crimi- 
nations and recriminations, by daily injuries and retaliations, and by tyran- 
nous exactions and annoyances, that even men in authority of good intentions 
and of ordinary humane impulses were betrayed into measures of injustice 
and wrong which themselves would not seek to justify on the return of sober 
reason. But far worse than all for the peace and safety and good order of the 
people, there began to appear actively in the field organized bands of armed, 
mounted "guerrillas," infesting and raiding the State in many directions. 



CONDUCT OF GUERRILLAS. 653 

The members of these bands of raiders were mainly men who had formerly 
given their allegiance to the Confederate service ; but, under different pretext 
and from different causes, had abandoned that service and defied the author- 
ity of the Government, and lent themselves to the lives of marauders and 
freebooters. Apparently reckless of all responsibility to the laws of God or 
man, they gave themselves to an unrestrained license of revengeful murder, 
of bold and daring robbery, and of deeds of violence and outrage, which 
were without the pale of the laws of civilized warfare. Men in Federal uni- 
forms, whether paroled and unarmed prisoners, sick and wounded in hos- 
pitals, or with or without means of defense, were massacred in cold blood 
wherever opportunity offered. Banks, railroad trains, public depositories 
and stores were robbed, and outrages marked everywhere the frequent paths 
of these flying troopers, who scudded from one retreat to another like 
phantom scourges. These bands were made up of a strange medley of 
characters. Here, one had become a desperado, devoting his life to revenge 
for an outrage by some military enemy upon mother or wife or sister. An- 
other, in fierce wrath, had declared undying war for the wanton murder, by 
armed violence, of a father or brother. Yet another, because his house and 
property had vanished in smoke and ashes in the destroying track of an op- 
posing army, had sworn to reimburse or revenge himself on guilty or inno- 
cent. These cruel wrongs are but the incidents of war, which even the best 
men in authority are unable to avert; so this outgrowth of desperate char- 
acter is the exceptional result of war, which good men and good government 
can not repress or be responsible for. 

But the more fruitful source and cause for the appearance at this time of 
this most disturbing and destructive element of lawlessness and anarchy is 
graphically set forth by a recent historian in the following language : i "Im- 
agine the situation in which the Confederate soldier was placed. Almost 
destitute of hope that the cause for which he fought would triumph, and 
fighting on from instinctive, obstinate pride, no longer receiving from the 
people the sympathy, hospitality, and hearty encouragement once accorded 
to him; almost compelled for comfort, if not for existence, to practice op- 
pression and wrong upon his own countrymen, is it surprising that he be- 
came wild and lawless, that he adopted a rude creed, in which strict 
conformity to military regulations and a nice obedience to general orders 
held not very prominent places ? This condition obtained in a far greater 
degree with the cavalry employed in the ' outpost ' departments than with 
the infantry or the soldiery of the large armies. There is little temptation 
and no necessity or excuse for it among troops that are well fed, regularly 
paid in good money, and provided with comfortable clothing, blankets, and 
shoes in the cold winter ; but troops whose rations are few and scanty, who 
flutter with rags and wear ventilating shoes which suck in the cold air, who 
sleep at night under a blanket which keeps the saddle from a sore-backed 

1 Duke's History, pp. 529-30. 



654 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

horse in the daytime, who are paid, if paid at all, with waste paper, who 
have become hardened to the licentious practices of a cruel warfare — such 
troops will be frequently tempted to violate the moral code. Many Confed- 
erate cavalrymen so situated left their commands altogether and became 
guerrillas, salving their consciences with the thought that the desertion was 
not to the enemy. These men, leading a comparatively luxurious life, and 
receiving from some people a mistaken and foolish admiration, attracted to 
the same career young men who would never have quitted their colors and 
their duties." 

The methods and measures required to be executed in the progress of 
the war, and the constantly-increasing tendency to abusive military law- 
lessness, on the one hand, and to rebeUious defiance, on the other, made 
the duties and responsibilities of commandant in Kentucky exceedingly 
unpleasant to a man of a high sense of honor. This position becoming dis- 
tasteful. General Boyle had resigned it, unfortunately for the people, only 
to be succeeded by men less worthy and scrupulous, whose corrupt abuse 
of power inaugurated a reign of spoliation, of civil violence, and of terror, 
as reprehensible in morals as were the doings of the guerrillas. 

1 Shaler has so ably and pertinently, and so dispassionately, treated the 
two sides of the partisan history of military events in Kentucky, in the last 
year of the war, that we venture to quote him freely here : 

"The desperation to which the people were brought by the system of 
guerrilla raids can hardly be described. In the year 1864, there was not a 
county in the State that was exempt from their ravages. The condition of 
the Commonwealth reminds the historical student of that which came 
with the thirty-years' war in Germany, and with the latter stages of the war 
between king and Parliament in England. It is the normal condition when 
a country is harried by the discords of a civil war, and especially when there 
are no longer large armies in the field. 

"On the 4th of January, 1864, Governor Bramlette, late a Federal 
officer, who, at the outset of his political life, was opposed to such summary 
and unwarranted action, took the singular responsibility of ordering the 
arrest of the Confederate sympathizers, to be held as hostages for the return 
of all persons captured and detained by guerrillas. Great as was the need 
of protection from these freebooters, this proclamation was a serious trans- 
gression of the laws which the governor was sworn to maintain, and as such 
met the condemnation of a great part of the Union men. Afterward, the 
Legislature endeavored to secure the suppression of this evil by providing 
more numerous and more effective troops to be used for State defense. This 
Legislature voted the large sum of five million dollars for the purpose of 
paying for the adequate internal defense of the State. 

"On July 1 6th, General Burbridge, under order of General Sherman, 
commanding the department, issued a sanguinary order of reprisals, requiring 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth, p. 345. 



REVENGING THE DEATH OF SOLDIERS. 655 

that whenever a citizen was killed by guerrillas, four prisoners chosen from this 
•class of marauders were to be taken to the place where the deed was done, 
and in retaliation shot to death. The difficulty was that it was impossible 
to determine among a lot of prisoners who belonged to a properly-commis- 
sioned command, and who were simply brigands. Under the order, many 
executions took place, some of men who probably were to be classed as 
Confederate soldiers. The brutal violence of this plan made it extremely 
distasteful to all fair-minded people. It was carried out without even the 
semblance of law given by the proceedings of a court-martial. Nor had it 
the sorry merit of success. It merely gave an additional bitterness to a 
contest that was becoming a reproach to the name of the race." 

Our space permits but brief mention of a few of the bloody executions 
and incidents which followed the issuance of General Burbridge's order. 

1 In July, two rebel prisoners were taken from Louisville to Henderson 
and shot to death, in retaliation for wounding of Mr. Rankin. Eighteen 
thousand dollars were collected from his Southern neighbors for indemnity, 
not a dollar of which Rankin would receive. 

Two other prisoners were similarly sent to Russellville, to be shot on the 
spot where Mr. Porter died from wounds received in defending himself 
from guerrillas, on July 28th. 

William Long, William Tythe, William Darbro, and R. W. Yates, four 
prisoners, were brought from Lexington to Pleasureville and shot to death, 
in retaliation for the alleged killing of colored men in another part of the 
county. The bodies of the prisoners shot were left lying unburied for a 
day, when they were taken by neighbors and interred in the cemetery at 
Eminence. 

On the 15th, George Wainscott, and William and John Lingenfelter were 
shot at Williamstown, on account of the killing of Joel Skirvin and Andrew 
Simpson by guerrillas. 

Richmond Berry and May Hamilton were similarly executed at Bloom- 
field, in retaliation for the killing of J. R. Jones. 

J. Bloom and W. B. McClasshan were taken from Louisville and shot 
at Franklin, on the 20th, in retaliation for some killing done by guerrillas. 

In retaliation for the shooting by Captain Sue Munday's guerrillas of a 
Federal soldier, near Jeffersontown, Kentucky, W. Lilly, S. Hatley, M. 
Briscoe, and Ca])tain L. D. Buckner, were ordered to be taken by Captain 
Hackett, of the Twenty-sixth Kentucky, and shot to death on the spot. 

. Cheney and Jones were taken from the military prison, at Louisville, and 
shot at Munfordville, Kentucky, in retaliation for the killing, by guerrillas, 
of J. M. Morry, of the Thirteenth Kentucky infantry. 

James Hoi)kins, J. W. Sipple, and Sam Stagdale, were similarly shot 
near Bloomfield, for the killing of two negroes by Sue Munday's men, with 
which they had nothing to do. 

\ Collins" Annals of Kentucky. 



656 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

McGee and Ferguson were taken out of the prison at Lexington, and 
hung, by order of Burbridge. 

W. C. Martin, W. B. Dunn, J. Edmonson, J. M. Jones, W. L. Robin- 
son, J. Tomhnson, A. V. Tudor, and S. Turley, were taken from Louisville 
prison to Munfordville, to be shot to death in similar manner. 

Six confederates were shot to death by order of Burbridge, at Osceola, 
Green county, in retaliation for the killing of two Union men by others. 

On the 4th of September, Frank M. Holmes and three other prisoners 
were shot at Brandenburg, for the killing of Mr. Henry, near that place, 
by guerrillas. 

Four other prisoners were similarly shot at Frankfort, four at Midway, 
and others elsewhere, for similar reasons. 

As but rarely a real guerrilla was taken alive and reached the door of a 
prison, the unfortunate men thus ruthlessly borne out and massacred in cold 
blood, without trial or investigation before any sort of tribunal, were mainly 
prisoners of war, and entitled to the considerations of such. The summary 
executions were wanton murders, and without palliation. The effect of 
these official crimes, together with the spoliations, robberies, and tyrannies 
of the same men in authority, brought the perpetrators, in their characters 
and deeds, upon the same moral level with the guerrillas, on the other side. 
Between the two, no citizen, of Federal or Confederate sympathy, felt any 
longer safely protected in life, in liberty of action, or in property. The 
terrors of apprehension, and the incertitude of anarchy, gloomily hung upon 
the spirits of all. The great mass of the Union citizenship, of pure heart 
and intent, with indignant protest, deplored the disgrace brought upon their 
cause; while their neighbors of opposing sentiment repudiated the murder- 
ous and thieving depredations done by the guerrilla bands, and suffered in 
submission. We quote again from Shaler: 

1 " In the August election, the interference of the militia with the polling 
was even more serious than in the previous year. In the election period 
an extensive series of military arrests were begun, designed to overawe those 
who were disposed to criticise the action of the military commanders. This 
system of provost-marshal government so disgusted the people that a ma- 
jority of them, though retaining their loyalty, could no longer be trusted to 
vote for the candidates approved, and almost nominated, by the Federal 
commanders. Fortunately, the election of the year was not of a general 
character, or the result would have given encouragement to the rebellion, 
by showing that the Union men were now divided into two distinct divisions, 
the smaller part made up of those who were willing to go to any extremity 
in their toleration of the arbitrary acts of a provost-marshal system, that 
gave effect to the oppressive and often brutal humor of the courts of war; 
and another larger part who, believing that the immediate danger from the 
armed enemy was over, were disposed to give their principal attention to 

I Shalei's Kentucky Commonwealth p. 246. 



CRUELTY TO THE HELPLESS. 657 

the men who were undermining the foundations of civil government within 
the Commonwealth. 

" The only office of importance that was to be filled at the August elec- 
tion of 1864 was that of judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third 
district. Alvin Duvall was a candidate for re-election; his course as a jurist 
was satisfactory to a large part of the people, and he was renominated for 
the office. Although he had in no public way indicated any sympathy for 
the rebellion, he was not regarded as a strong Union man. If the matter 
had been left to the people, it is likely that he would have been defeated at 
the polls. The military authorities resolved to have him arrested just before 
the election, but he escaped from the State, and went beyond their control. 
They then ordered that he should not be allowed to stand as a candidate, 
and put troops at the polls to enforce this ord&r, their aim being to secure 
the election of M. M. Benton, whom the Federal officers had adopted as 
their candidate. To defeat this end the conservative Union men nominated 
Judge Robertson, telegraphing his nomination on the morning of the elec- 
tion to the polling places. As the military guards had no orders to refuse 
the tender of votes for Judge Robertson, he was elected as a protest against 
the arbitrary action of the military arm ; a large number of citizens testified 
their disgust by remaining away from the polls. 

" This iniquitous system of interference with the civil law had now pretty 
thoroughly separated the better class of the Union men from all sympathies 
with the Federal Government. But worse was yet to come. In all the 
campaigns and battles in Kentucky, there had always been shown the utmost 
consideration for women and children. The soldiers of both armies, be it 
said to their great honor, were singularly considerate to them. Even when 
the battles raged through the towns, as they often did, the non-combatant 
class was tenderly cared for. 

"But in 1864, the provost- marshals of the State, mostly men who were 
not soldiers in any proper sense, who had none of the better traditions of 
war, began to arrest and imprison on charges of sympathy with the rebellion, 
correspondence with the enemy, and the like. Women, with their children, 
were banished from the State to Canada under a guard of negro soldiers or 
sent to prison. Women whose children, brothers, and husbands were in the 
Confederate army, or dead on its battlefields, were naturally given to utter- 
ing much treason in their speech; but it was a pitiable sight to see the power 
of the Federal Government turned against these helpless sufferers. 

"While the treatment of non-combatants, old men, women, and children, 
and the interference of the Federal troops with elections, was the principal 
grievance of the conservative Union men, there was another source of 
trouble of a more truly political nature, which served to increase the disaf- 
fection of the Kentuckians with the ways of the Federal authorities. 

"The Federal Government had engaged to leave slavery as it found it 
in Kentucky and elsewhere. Although there was a certain amount of dis- 

42 



658 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

gust when the emancipation proclamation came out, it did not in itself make 
an enduring impression on the minds of the Union men; but when, in 1864, 
the Government began to enlist negro troops in Kentucky, the people be- 
came greatly excited over the matter. Up to this date, the Commonwealth 
had met the requisitions for troops to carry on the war with a promptness 
and loyalty unsurpassed by any other State. They naturally considered it 
as an insult that their slaves, even though such in name only, should be 
taken from them and put into the army with their own volunteer soldiers. 
Although this state of feeling will probably not commend itself as reason- 
able to those who were born in non-slave-holding communities, it was very 
natural in the Kentuckians. To them, military service had always been an 
honorable occupation, open only to those of the masterful race. They had 
refused to take into their service any recruits from the free negroes of the 
State. This blow at their military pride was keenly felt. 

"The action of the Federal Government in this matter of enlisting slaves 
was singularly vacillating. Again and again the process was begun, and 
abandoned on account of remonstrances of the State authorities. It was an 
unprofitable experiment; the enlistment of white troops was made difficult; 
a few thousand blacks were secured, but they never proved of much service 
to the Federal army. 

"This bitterness between the conservative Union men and the Federal 
commander grew to such height that in September, 1864, there was grave 
danger of an actual revolt of the Kentuckians against their oppressors. The 
State authorities were now fairly arrayed against the Federal provost-mar- 
shals and their following. General Hugh Ewing, commanding the district, 
had ordered the county courts to levy a tax sufficient to arm and pay fifty 
men in each county. His order was answered by Governor Bramlette, who, 
in a proclamation, forbade the county courts giving effect to the order. 
Although Governor Bramlette represented the ultra-Union men, there can 
be no doubt that he would have striven to maintain his position by the use 
of force. Governor Bramlette was reported at this time on the point of is- 
suing a proclamation recalling the Kentucky troops from the field. Lincoln 
revoked Ewing's order, and so this critical point was passed. At the same 
time, an examination was ordered into the conduct of certain knaves, who 
had for months ruled Western Kentucky in a fashion that had not had its 
parallel since the tyrannies of the Austrian Haynau. A commission, com- 
posed of General Speed Fry and Colonel John Mason Brown, checked the 
iniquities and made such a showing that General E. A. Paine, Colonel H. 
W. Barry, of the Eighth United States Negro Artillery, and Colonel Mc- 
Chesney, of Illinois, and a number of subordinate officers were removed. It 
was charged that they had been guilty of extreme cruelty and extortion." 

^ After a thorough investigation. Commissioners Brown and Fry, both 
Union men of the highest integrity, reported that Paine's violence and men- 

1 Report accompanying Governor Bramlette's message, House Journal, 1865. 



DISGUST AMONG THE HOME GUARDS. 659 

aces haa compelled many peaceful and orderly citizens to abandon their 
homes. His harsh and brutal language, with constant vulgarity and blas- 
phemy toward gentlemen and ladies of refinement, his robbery and extor- 
tions of citizens, his summary arrest and imprisonment of citizens against 
whom not an earthly charge could be made, and his seizure and execution 
of prisoners and citizens without charges and trials, Avere among acts of no- 
torious infamy which were fully proven. The number of persons who had 
suffered death at his hands from summary execution was stated by some to 
be as high as forty-three, and the graves were shown to prove it. The com- 
mission furnished sworn testimony that Paine and five or six high official 
confederates were guilty of corruption, bribery, and malfeasance in office. 
To escape consequences. General Paine and his subordinates fled to Illinois, 
from whence they originally came. A Colonel McChesney, at Mayfield, 
One Hundred and Thirty-Fourth Illinois, was found to have also executed 
some men, four of whom were citizens — Kesterton, Taylor, Mathey, and 
Hess — without a shadow of trial, and had collected large sums of money 
from citizens by forcing them to do hard manual labor on useless entrench- 
ments, unless they purchased immunity by paying from five dollars to four 
hundred each. General Meredith, who succeeded Paine, turned fifty-one 
prisoners loose at Mayfield and many more at Paducah. 

Shaler further says : "These blows at the system of inflictions were not 
to do more than subdue, for a moment, the worst forms of the evil. This 
was too deep-seated for easy remedy. General Burbridge had an over- 
l)earing spirit. He gathered around him a set of advisers who, it was 
asserted, acting as a secret inquisition, sent many Union men into prison or 
banishment, simply because they protested against the Federal outrages. A 
sort of fury seemed to possess many men hitherto of good qualities as citizens 
or soldiers. 

" So far from these brutal reprisals diminishing the evils of the guerrilla 
warfare, it grew each day to be a more crying evil. The Home Guards, 
which before had carried on a tolerably effective defense against these bands, 
became disgusted with the inefficiency and opposition of the Federal com- 
manders. A vast number of bandit gangs, nominally in the Confederate 
army, but really without any control from commissioned officers, roamed 
over the State in all directions, robbing, murdering, and burning as they 
went. It seemed, for a time, as if civil government would be broken to 
pieces by these two mortal foes to order — the guerrillas and the provost- 
marshals. Even the small bands of Federal soldiers pursuing the guerrillas 
learned so far to imitate their ways that Burbridge himself was compelled to 
issue an order providing severe punishments for outrages by the Union 
troops. All these accumulating evils showed how true was the instinct of 
the people of Kentucky, who strove to keep the machinery of their civil sys- 
tem intact. There is a government by armies and a government by citizens, 
tut the two can never be blended without the utmost danger to the State. 



66o HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

"It is the painful duty of the historian to go yet further in the history 
of this pernicious system that was developed by General Burbridge's agents. 
All that he did in the effort to suppress the guerrillas, and to clear the State 
of treason, may be set down as grave blunders of a brave, well-meaning, 
though most misguided, soldier. The next series of acts had, it was gen- 
erally believed, the purpose of improperly taking money from the farmers of 
the State. 

"The first step, in this new class of inflictions, was to order the farmers 
to sell their hogs to designated agents at a. /ai'r price ; next, Burbridge com- 
manded that no hogs should be sent out of the State without a special permit, 
and should be sold to the aforesaid specified agents. These agents offered a 
price considerably below that paid in the Cincinnati market. The ostensible 
reason of this action was that the Federal Government had given a contract 
to certain parties in Louisville to furnish one hundred thousand head of 
swine, and that, if the farmers were allowed to sell in their natural markets, 
the contractors would not be able to obtain a sufficient supply. 

" General Burbridge's agents supported this demand by many threats of 
confiscation and other penalties. Naturally, the beginning of a system of 
confiscation of private property aroused an even more general and furious 
indignation than the mere political acts of oppression. Here again the pro- 
tests of the State Government were heard by Lincoln, and, after about a 
month of wrestle with the evil, Burbridge's famous ' hog order ' was revoked 
by the Federal Government. Notwithstanding the revocation of this order. 
General Burbridge was retained in command for some months afterward, 
and the citizens were yet to suffer for some months under this man more| 
exasperating inflictions than came to them from the honorable war of other 
years. There can be no doubt that the people of Kentucky endured far 
more outrage from the acts of the Federal provost-marshals than they did 
from all the acts of the legitimate war put together." 

The remaining military events during 1864 and to the close of the war, 
in Kentucky, were not of important character. General Forrest attacked 
Paducah on the 25th of March, in full force. Colonel Hicks, in defense, 
with two regiments and a battalion, retired into Fort Anderson, and refused 
a demand for surrender. He was supported by the United States gunboats. 
Peosta and Pawpaw. After two days of siege and attack, the Confederates, 
were compelled to retire, with considerable loss, but not until they had 
destroyed the Federal headquarters, quartermaster's and commissary's build- 
ings and stores, and done much other damage. The Federal loss was one 
hundred men. About October 1st, General Burbridge, in command of 
four thousand Federal troops, including Colonel Graham's Eleventh and 
Colonel Weatherford's Thirteenth Kentucky cavalry, and Colonel Maxwell's- 
Twenty-sixth, Colonel Alexander's Thirtieth, Colonel Starling's Thirty-fifth, 
Colonel Hanson's Thirty-seventh, Colonel Mini's Thirty-ninth, Colonel 
True's Fortieth, and Colonel Clark's Forty-fifth, mounted infantry, and 



ATTACK ON SALTVILLE. 66 1 

Major Quiggins' Sandy Valley Guards, marched out of Kentucky through 
Pound Gap, for the purpose of attacking and capturing the important works 
at Saltville, Virginia. This place was defended by a force of two thousand 
Confederates, in command of General John S. Williams, including a small 
brigade of Kentuckians, under Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge. The 
advance of Burbridge from Pound Gap had been contested stubbornly and 
gallantly by a cavalry force of Colonel Henry Giltner, the engagements at 
Clmch mountain and Laurel Gap assuming the importance of battles. On 
the 2d of October, the attack on Saltville occurred. The fighting for some 
hours was spirited and desperate on both sides. General Williams, in the 
center of his command, rallied and enthused his men, and held them steadily 
to the front with that courage and gallantry which had ever distinguished 
him in the war, until the Federals were beaten back time and again, and 
finally driven from the field, with a loss of nearly four hundred men. 
General Burbridge retreated in disorder to Kentucky, pursued by the har- 
assing Confederates. 

The war was virtually ended in Kentucky early in 1864, excepting the 
petty, and aimless, and needless strifes of the provost-marshal forces and 
the guerrillas on the aggressive side, and the harassed and suffering citizen- 
ship on the submissive. The seventy-five thousand Kentucky troops in both 
the Federal and Confederate armies, in actual and necessary field service, 
had drifted beyond the borders of Kentucky, and were now dispersed and 
incorporated among the great contending forces that were marching and 
fighting in the Virginias and Tennessee, in Georgia and the Carolinas, 
and the extreme South-west on either side of the Mississippi river. They 
were yielding up their lives by the scores, the hundreds and the thousands, 
in frequent skirmishes and smaller battles incidental to cavalry raids, to 
scouting service, and to picket duty, and in the great battles of Chicka- 
mauga, of Mission Ridge, of Lookout mountain, of Kennesaw mountain, of 
Vicksburg, of Franklin, of Nashville, and in others on the march of Sher- 
man to the sea. On the Potomac and around Richmond, the great battles 
of Gettysburg, Bermuda Hundred, Drury's Bluff, the Wilderness, Cold 
Harbor, Petersburg, Winchester, and Cedar creek, had distinctly marked 
the episodes of the war. In the earliest months of 1865, ^^e beginning of 
the end of this mightiest civil struggle of all history and of all time was 
apparently nigh. The signs of exhaustion, of discouragement, and des- 
peration of hope were manifest throughout the invaded and sundered 
realms of the Confederacy. The last recruits had gone to her decimated 
and wasted armies, her sources of army supplies were overrun and devas- 
tated by the advancing Federal hosts, and there was little left to postpone 
the inevitable result but the dauntless and heroic courage of the remnants 
of those armies of Lee, and Jackson, and Longstreet in the East, and of 
the Johnstons, and Hardee, and Kirby Smith in the West, which had for 



662 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

four years commanded the admiration of the world for their deeds of valor 
and heroism. 

The prodigious efforts of the past year at recruiting the Federal ranks 
by drafting and by bounties to volunteers had swelled the ranks of the 
Union armies to a total of over one million men, to which the Confeder- 
ates could now oppose less than two hundred thousand. Beneath the 
constricting folds of the vast bodies of Federal troops moving over the 
fields of the South, the exhausted rebels were gradually yielding. At last 
came the evacuation of and retreat from Richmond, then the surrender at ■I 
Appomattox, and finally the crash of the Confederacy. 

The flight of President Davis from impending capture, and for refuge, 
accompanied by his cabinet, to Charlotte, North Carolina, under escort of 
a division of cavalry, in which were found the remains of Williams' Ken- 
tucky brigade, commanded by Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, and of 
Morgan's old brigade, commanded by General Basil Duke, and a detach- 
ment from Colonel Giltner's brigade; the separation of the cavalcade, and 
effort to reach the armies of Generals Taylor and Forrest in Alabama ; the 
capture of President Davis and suite, and the final surrenders of all the 
armies east and west of the Mississippi river, make up a panorama of 
picturesque scenes and events to be justly viewed only on fuller pages of J 
history than can be given here. 

On November 8, 1864, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson werej 
again elected president and vice-president of the United States. In Ken- 
tucky, this ticket received 27,786 votes against 64,301 for George B.j 
McClellan and George H. Pendleton, Democratic candidates in opposition. 
During this year the credit of the United States Government sank to an 
alarmingly low ebb, and the values of both the paper currency and the bonds 
put forth by the government to support the emergencies of the war widely 
and wildly fluctuated. The greenback currency ranged in value upon the 
New York market as two hundred to three hundred dollars, to one hundred 
dollars in gold. Its value gradually appreciated toward the close of the 
war, as success seemed more assured to the Union cause. But it was not 
for years after the close of the war, that coin and paper currency approxi- 
mated and reached the standard of equal values. 

On January 11, 1865, James Guthrie, of Louisville, was elected by the 
Legislature United States senator for six years, from the 4th of March, 1865, 
and General John C. Breckinridge was appointed secretary of war in the 
Confederate cabinet, in place of James A. Sedden, resigned. 

On the 6th day of January, Governor Bramlette sent in his message with 
accompanying documents of much interest and value to the history of that 
period. The report of Adjutant-General Finnell showed the total enroll- 
ment of persons liable to military duty in Kentucky to be 133,493, of whom 
from the beginning of the war to January i, 1865, 76,335 volunteers were 
furnished to the United States army, and seven thousand more were already 



BURERIDGE REMOVED. 663 

recruited under the recent call, making a total near eighty-three thousand 
men. Besides these, the number in the service of the Home Guards, not 
enumerated in the above, may safely be estimated at ten thousand. During 
the term of the war, there were perhaps forty thousand of the citizens of 
the State who entered the Confederate army. We have in these figures one- 
tenth of the population, nearly, in military service ; a larger per cent, given 
to war than has ever been furnished by any modern State in the term of 
three years. It should be considered that these men were volunteers from 
the citizens of the State, in no part composed of the substitutes who formed 
so large a part of the forces from the Northern States; yet Kentucky had, 
years before the war, sent many thousands of her youth as colonists to other 
States of the West. Thousands of these were in the regiments of their 
adopted States, both North and South. 

In January, 1865, President Lincoln annulled the iniquitous orders con- 
cerning the limitations of trade in Kentucky, and the Confederate Govern- 
ment at last, and much needed for its self-vindication, took steps finally to 
disavow the action of guerrillas in the State. For many months the regular 
troops of the Confederacy had repudiated all connection with these outlaws, 
and even in some cases had joined with the Home Guards in hunting them 
down. 

1 "The banishment of Jacob and Wolford by General Burbridge was fol- 
lowed by an order to his subordinates to resist the State Government, which 
was at that time trying to raise a sufficient force of State troops to hunt 
down and crush out the guerrilla bands. Burbridge not only sought to nul- 
lify this action of the Commonwealth in raising new troops, but ordered the 
muster-out of all the State troops now in service. 

" Soon after the assembly of the Legislature, a committee was appointed 
to visit Washington, and lay before the president the deplorable condition 
of the Commonwealth due to the conduct of Burbridge and his party. The 
remonstrances of these ambassadors, and the attention which Burbridge's 
acts had begun to attract in the whole country, led to his removal from 
command, thus relieving the State from the rule of a man who had been 
well-named the "military Jeffreys" of the war. He was replaced by Gen- 
eral Palmer, a man of much better temper, who, though he fell under the 
same evil influences which had guided Burbridge in his course, never went 
to the same extremes. 

"The people now began to act with more energy in the suppression of 
the guerrilla warfare. The Confederate scouts, from time to time within 
the State, did not hesitate to treat them as public enemies. A large part of 
the motive that led even decent citizens to take up with these marauding 
bands, or to give them aid and comfort, came from a spirit of protest against 
the arbitrary acts of the Federal officers. As soon as there seemed a chance 
that these evils were about to be mitigated, the people felt like regaining for 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth p. 358. 



664 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



themselves a better public security, and took efficient steps for their protec- 
tion. 

"In February, the Thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution 
was presented to the Legislature for action. This amendment provided for 
the unconditional abolition of slavery within the United States, but did not 
secure any compensation for the value of the slaves within the loyal States. 
The subject was referred to the judiciary committee of the State Senate. 
Two reports were made; one, the majority, favoring the rejection of the 
amendment; the other, its acceptance, with the request that Congress give 
compensation for the value of slaves held by owners who were loyal to the 
Government during the rebellion. The majority report was accepted, both 
in the Senate and House ; in the former, by a vote of twenty-one to thirteen ; 
in the latter, by fifty-six to twenty-eight. The Thirteenth amendment was 
soon after adopted by the requisite number of States, and in this way slavery 
quietly lost its legal position, though its life had been practically extinguished 
by the events of the war. 

1 During the progress and at the termination of the war, many facts and 
statistics were preserved and compiled in the interest of science, going to 
show the relative condition of the people of Kentucky with that of other 
States and nations. Particularly does this refer to the statistics of the Sani- 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth p. 372. 



A Table of Measurements of American White Men, Compiled from Report 
of the Sanitary Commission, Made from Measurements of the United States 
Volunteers during the Civil War, by B. A. Gould. 



NATIVITY. 



New England 

N. York, N. Jersey, Pennsylv'a 

Ohio, Indiana 

Michigan, Missouri, Illinois . . 
Seaboard slave States .... 
Kentucky, Tennessee .... 
Free States west of Miss'pi river 
British maritime provinces 

Canada 

England 

Scotland 

Ireland 

Germany .• . 

Scandinavia 



z 


g 


s: 


c 






g 


u 


» 


tr 


3 






n 







3q 
3- 


w 


3 


S' 




n 

3 


5' 


5' 




3 


•0 





3- 


c 






3 

D. 


152,370 


67.834 


139-39 


273,026 


67.529 


140.83 


220,796 


68.169 


145-37 


71,196 


67.822 


141.78 
140.99 
149-85 


50,334 


68.605 


3.8II 


67.419 




6,320 


67.510 


143-59 


31.698 


67.086 


141-35 


30,037 


66.741 


137.61 


7.313 


67.258 


137-85 


83,128 


66.951 


139.18 


89,021 


66.660 


140.36 


6,782 


67-337 


184.14 



Mean Circumfer- 
ence OF Chest. 



36.71 
37.06 

37-53 
37-29 
36.64 
37-83 
37-53 
37-13 
37-14 
36.91 
37-57 
37-54 
37.20 

3939 



34-" 
34-38 
34-95 
34-04 
34-23 
35-30 
3484 
34.81 
34-35 
34-30 
34-69 
35-27 
34-74 
35-37 



22.02 
22.10 
22.11 

22.19 
21.93 
22.32 
21.97 
22.13 
22.11 
22. 16 
22.23 

22.09 
22.37 



3*3 

no- 



es 



295 

237 
486 
466 
600 
848 
184 

237 
177 
103 
178 
84 
106 
221 



Kentucky's contribution to the war. 665 

tary Commission, as carefully collated and classed by the distinguished 
mathematician, Dr. B. A. Gould, now well known as the astronomer of the 
Argentine Republic. Besides its humane work of charity, during the war, 
this society left a valuable body of fact in its carefully-made measurements 
of two hundred and fifty thousand men. These measurements were so 
tabulated as to separate men from the different parts of the country. From 
this excellent digest, the extracts given in the accompanying table are taken. 
The measurements of troops from Kentucky were doubtless far more nu- 
merous than from Tennessee, as the Federal troops from Tennessee were 
few in number. 

It should be noticed that the Confederacy received the youth and strength 
mainly from the richest part of the Kentucky soil. It is nearly certain that 
the averages given in the tables would have been distinctly greater if they 
had included the forty thousand men who drifted out into the rebel army. 
Even without these corrections, the form of the men as determined by the 
measurement of fifty thousand troops is surprising. Their average height 
is nearly an inch greater than that of the New England troops; they exceed 
them equally in girth of chest, and the circumference of head. In size, 
they come up to the level of the picked regiments of the Northern armies 
of Europe. Yet these results are obtained from what was a levy e>i masse, 
for such was the call to arms that took more than one in ten of the popula- 
tion, both as infantry and cavalry. These troops did very effective service 
in both armies. 

^ The rebel exiles who braved all consequences and forced their way 
through the lines to form Morgan's cavalry, the First Kentucky brigade of 
infantry, the commands of Marshall, and others, and the earliest volunteer 
Federal regiments, were probably the superior element of these Kentucky 
contributions to the war. They were the first runnings from the press, and 
naturally had the peculiar quality of their vintage more clearly marked than 
the later product, when the mass became more turgid with conscripts, sub- 
stitutes, and bounty volunteers. Had the measurements and classified results 
applied only to the representative native element, the standard of average 
of manhood would have been shown to be perceptibly higher. Though the 
ancestry of these soldiers had been a fighting people, yet for forty years 
their children had known and followed only the peaceful pursuits of agri- 
culture, and the industries of trade peculiar to the Commonwealth, with the 
limited exception of the Mexican war interlude, which made an inconsid- 
erable draft of the few thousand volunteers during its brief existence. They 
may be said to have been wholly unused to the spirit, and untutored in the 
arts, of war. Yet their record of bold and daring skill, of heroic courage, 
and of indomitable endurance, was equal to that of the best troops on either 
side of the combatants in this great civil war, and certainly unsurpassed by 
the soldiers of Europe, of the present or any past age. Take, for illustra- 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth p. 375. 



666 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

tion, on the one side, the force of Morgan; we find in this remarkable body 
of men, great capacity at once for dash and endurance. Its leader, sud- 
denly improvised from the ranks of private citizenship, not only organized, 
aligned, and led this splendid squadron, but possessed the intuitive genius 
to develop a new feature in the art of war, in which was a rare combination 
of vigilance, daring, fertility of resource, and an impetuous power of hurl- 
ing all the husbanded force of body and mind into a period of ceaseless 
activity. Theirs was the capacity to break through the lines of the enemy,^ 
to live for weeks in an atmosphere of battle, fighting and destroying by day, 
and marching by night, deploying in front of the enemy, or attacking his 
lines and posts far in the rear — a life that only men of the toughest and 
finest fiber can endure. Yet this force owed its peculiar excellence to the 
qualities of the men and the subordinate commanders, as to the distinguished 
leader. Such a list of superior subordinate commanders as Basil Duke,. 
Hines, D. Howard Smith, Grigsby, Cluke, Alston, Steele, Gano, Castleman, 
Chenault, Brent, and others, was perhaps found in no other such brigade 
of Kentucky cavalry. Yet at the head of their regiments and brigades, such 
leaders as Wolford, Green Clay Smith, Hobson, and others, showed quali- 
ties of a high order, and their commands proved to be the most effective 
Federal cavalry of the war. The fighting of the Federal regiments of Ken- 
tucky infantry and cavalry, throughout the great campaigns and battles of 
the war, showed the men to be possessed of the highest soldierly qualities; 
but so merged were they in the great Union armies, and so little of distinct- 
ive Kentucky history has been collated or published of these, that we find it 
difficult to illustrate with the recount of their exceptional services. 

^ The most marked example of the character and success of the Ken- 
tucky troops in the Confederate infantry service has been given us in the 
well-preserved history and statistics of the First Kentucky Confederate brig- 
ade. We have already noted the daring and gallantry of these troops in the 
battles of Donelson, of Shiloh, of Baton Rouge, of Murfreesboro, of Chicka- 
mauga, and of other conflicts, to Dalton, Georgia, in May, 1864. On the au- 
thority of General Fayette Hewitt, this brigade marched out of Dalton eleverk 
hundred and forty strong, on the 7th of May. The hospital reports show 
that up to September ist, not quite four months, eighteen hundred and sixty; 
wounds were taken by the command. This includes the killed, but many^ 
were struck several times in one engagement, in which case the wounds 
were counted as one. In two battles, over fifty-one per cent, of all engaged 
were killed or wounded. During the time of this campaign, there were not , 
more than ten desertions. The campaign ended with two hundred andMy 
forty men able to do duty; less than fifty were without wounds. It will be" 
remembered that this campaign was at a time when the hope of the Con- 
federate armies was well nigh gone, and they were fighting amid the darkness] 
of despair. 

I Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth p. 476. 



LOSSES DURING THE WAR. 667 

' The data afforded us does not give us an accurate idea of the destruc- 
tion of Ufe traceable to the war. The returns of the adjutant-general do not 
include the loss from death or wounds, the hundreds of small fights between 
the Home Guards, and other irregular troops, and the raiding parties of the 
enemy. It is estimated that in the two regular armies the State lost ap- 
proximately thirty-five thousand men by wounds in battle, and by diseases 
in hospitals and elsewhere contracted in military service. To these may be 
added several thousands whose lives were sacrificed within the State from 
irregular causes. There must be added to this sad reckoning of consequences 
the vast number of men who were shorn of their limbs, afflicted with internal 
disease bred by camp and march, or aged by the swift expenditure of force 
that such war demands. Omitting many small rencounters and irregular 
engagements in which there was much loss of life, but which have no place 
in our histories, Cai)tain L. R. Hawthorne, in a manuscript summary of the 
history of the war, enumerates one hundred and thirty-eight combats within 
the borders of Kentucky. 

In the closing scenes of the great war drama, of Confederate soldiers 
there were surrendered, by General Robert E. Lee, 27,805; General Joseph 
E. Johnston, 31,243; General Richard Taylor, 42,293; General E. Kirby 
Smith, 17,686; scattering and prisoners of war, 101,402 — a total of 220,429. 
By the official reports, the aggregate Federal military force was then, in the 
field and enlisted, 1,000,516 men, besides the prisoners in the hands of 
the Confederates, and released at the surrender, the mightiest army of modern 
times. 

1 Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth p. 377. 



668 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

(I77S-I886.) 



First Period, 1 7 7 5- 1 82 1 : 

Education of the Kentucky pioneers. 

Discussions of the " Danville Club." 

First schools. 

Mrs. Coomes, Filson, May, and Doni- 
phan. 

Manuscript text-books used. 

Kentucky primers and spellers. 

McKinney's school. 

First seminary, Transylvania, located 
near Danville. 

Its early struggles and work. 

First teacher and trustees. 

Difficulties of endowment. 

Transylvania moved to Lexington. 

First buildings there. 

Teachers Finley, Fry, and Priestly. 

First denominational schools. 

Legislature grants six thousand acres 
for a seminary in each county. 

Proceeds of these mostly squandered. 

Schools in Louisville. 

Second constitution does nothing for 
education. 

Might then have endowed a State sys- 
tem from North-west lands won by Clark, 
as Ohio, Indiana, and other States did. 

Neglect of female education. 

First suggestion in Governor Greenup's 
message, 1807. 

General Green Clay's advocacy. 

Election of Toulmin and Holley over 
Transylvania followed by discord. 

Governor Slaughter's messages on pop- 
ular education, 1816 and 1817. 

Mistakes of Virginia and Pennsylvania. 

Transylvania made a State institution 
in 1818. 

Holley made president. 

County seminaries dying of the disease 
of tnisteeism. 

Centre College incorporated, 1819. 



Fines and forfeitures to county semina- 
ries until 1820. 

Second Pe7-iod, 182 1 to 1829 — 

First attempt to support common schools 
by "literary fund" of legislation. 

Sixty thousand dollars first year. 

Next year. Legislature diverts it. 

State aid to Transylvania and Centre 
College. 

Legislative sparring. 

Alumni of Transylvania. 

Report of legislative committee, 1821. 

Governor Metcalfe repeats demand for 
Kentucky rights, in 1828. 

Followed by Governors Morehead and 
Letcher. 

If her Congressmen had demanded, Ken- 
tucky's share of public lands, ten million 
dollars. 

Splendid report of William T. Barry and 
other committeemen. 

Governor Desha's recommendations. 

Ben Hardin's speech opposing. 

Agitation for reform by Peers, Guthrie, 
Young, Morehead, etc. 

Transylvania burned. 

Louisville free school system. 

Disorder and neglect of State school 
interests about 1830. 

Peers' report. 

Awakens interest, and leads to the first 
law of 1838. 

Experimental district taxation inadej 
quate. 

Monitorial plan. 

Educational conventions. 

In 1836, Congress distributes to Ken- 
tucky $1,433,177. 

Eight hundred and fifty thousand dol-' 
lars set apart for the school fund. 

Law for a common-school system drafted 
by William F. Bullock, 1838. 



EDUCATION IN KENTUCKY. 



669 



Not for free schools. 

In 1840, school fund seized on to pay 
other debts. 

Effort to abolish the office of superin- 
tendent. 

Labors of Superintendents Bullock and 
Smith. 

School fund bankrupted. 

Discontent at local taxation. 

George R. McKee moves to repeal the 
system. 

State school bonds publicly burned by 
the authorities at Frankfort. 

Revised law of 1845. 

Governors Clarke, Letcher, and Owsley 
and the Legislatures do nothing, while 
sister States build up systems out of gov- 
ernment lands. 

Sixteen hundred students away at col- 
leges, and five thousand pupils now at 
home academies. 

Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, superintendent, 
1847-52. 

Third Period, 1849- 1865: 

New bonds issued. 

Two cents tax voted. 

Schools improved under Dr. Breckin- 
ridge's management. 

He restores the school fund. 



Contest between friends and enemies in 
constitutional convention. 

The sinking fund must pay the school 
fund dues. 

Changes in Revised Statutes of 1852, 
and Constitution of 1849. 

Dr. Matthews, superintendent. 

Normal College established, 1856. 

The civil war period. 

Superintendent Stevenson's views. 

Agricultural and Mechanical College 
grant. 

Fourth Period, 1 865-1 886: 

Plans and work of Superintendent Z. F. 
Smith, 1867-71. 

Fifteen cents tax voted. 

Increase to twenty cents. 

School fund trebled, and system im- 
proved. 

Opposition to reform. 

H. A. M. Henderson's work as superin- 
tendent, 1871-9. 

Improved law. 

Superintendent J. D. Pickett, 1879-86. 

Volunteer aid by Hons. Albert S. Berry, 
William M. Beckner, William Chenault, 
and others. 

Work of Judge Laban T. Moore, and 
others, framing the school law of 1884. 



Education in Kentucky, IJJS to 1821. — ^ It is sometimes said that the 
early settlers of Kentucky were an uneducated people. If this remark is 
limited to the body of the very earliest immigrants, it is, perhaps, true that 
they were rude and unlettered, but even among these there were many men 
of a different kind, such as George Rogers Clark, Benjamin Logan, John 
Floyd, the Todds, and others. 

The immigration which came at the close of the Revolutionary war, in 
1783, was of a different class. The historian, Humphrey Marshall, declares 
that among the population coming to Kentucky at this period, up to 1790, 
"was to be found as much culture and intelligence as fell to the lot of any 
equal number of people, promiscuously taken, in either Europe or America." 
The men who controlled and molded the destinies of Kentucky from 1783 
to 1800, if not very learned, were, many of them, well educated and fully 
capable of meeting all the questions of interest and policy which arose at 
the establishment of Kentucky as an independent State. 

The discussions of the Danville "Political Club," in 1786-87, as brought 
to light by Mr. Thomas Speed, in his article published in the Louisville 

I Paper by William Chenault, LL.D., read before the Filson Club of Louisville, December 7, 1885. 



670 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Commercial, 29th of September, 1878, show that the poUticians and states- 
men at the head of affairs in the district of Kentucky, in 1787, would 
compare favorably with those in charge of the State at any later period of 
our existence. Even the excellences and defects of the Constitution of the 
United States itself were not more ably discussed in any of the ratifying 
State conventions of 1788 than by the leading men of the " Political Club" at 
Danville. The amendments there proposed to the Constitution are among 
the best which time and experience have since suggested. Other questions 
of State policy and political economy were handled with like ability by the 
members of that club. These are some of the evidences of the culture of 
the early politicians of the State, and more might be adduced. 

The peculiar circumstances of our early history, under the influence 
of which the people grew up, were such as to impress upon them great 
vigor, energy, and enterprise, both of body and mind. Dr. Mann Butler 
asserts that, while some of the earliest pioneer leaders may not have pos- 
sessed the artificial education which comes from the perusal of books, they 
did have that real education which is sure to come from the study of men, 
and a development of their faculties, so as to be able to take the best ad- 
vantage of the conditions surrounding them. Many of them were endowed 
with the virtues of courage, kindness, magnanimity, fortitude, and all those 
elements of character which control the minds of the masses. Such men were 
better suited to the times in which they lived than they would have been if 
educated in the ordinary sense. The task of making Kentucky an inhabit- 
able State, by conquering the Indians, felling the forests, clearing away the 
canebrake, and turning the buffalo paths into roads, called more imperatively 
for high physical powers and bodily endurance than for the book education 
obtained in the schools. The people lived with their rifles in their hands, 
and even the school-boys were required to carry their guns with them to 
school, as it was not known what emergency might arise in which the hands 
of the pupils might not be essential for their own protection. Amid such 
interruptions, they pursued their studies. 

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that even the eadiest pioneer 
leaders of Kentucky felt no interest in the establishment of schools, or did 
nothing to promote the cause of education. Under the adverse circum- 
stances surrounding them, they did almost as much to educate their children 
as could well have been done. Scarcely had the families of Hugh McGary, 
Thomas Denton, Richard Hogan, and William Coomes, been permanently 
settled at Harro4sburg, when an effort was made to establish a school in 
the fort. The very year that Captain DuQuesne and Chief Blackfish made 
their formidable assault upon Boonesboro, a young man arrived at that fort 
to impart the rudiments of learning to the children of the station. The 
block-house at Lexington was hardly finished by Colonel Robert Patterson, 
in 1780, when a teacher was employed to take charge of a school within the 
fort. 



THE EARLIEST SCHOOL. 671 

We learn from Bishop Spalding's "Sketches of Kentucky" that Mrs. 
William Coomes, a faithful Catholic woman from Maryland, taught a fort 
school in Kentucky, at Harrodsburg, in 1775. Thus was opened the first 
school in that wide country stretching from Harrodsburg to the Virginia 
line. The town of Harrodsburg was then a small place, with a row or two 
of little cabins. Its men were dressed in hunting shirts, leggings, and 
moccasins. The appearance in such a community of a school taught by a 
■woman was certainly in striking contrast with the other surroundings. 

Our earliest historians, Filson, Bradford, and Marshall, make no mention 
of the coming of Mrs. Coomes to Kentucky. Later writers barely mention 
the fact, but tell us nothing of the character of the school, the course of 
study, the methods of work, or any of those particulars which we would 
■desire to know. 

Be it remembered, however, that this faithful, daring woman was the 
first to cross the Alleghanies, and to plant this outpost of civilization in 
the wilderness of Kentucky. Long years elapsed before the State of her 
adoption gave to the children of her own sex the right to participate in the 
benefits of the public donations made to education, but this only entitles 
the faithful teacher to greater credit for her efforts in behalf of the cause of 
education. 

To appreciate the difficulties under which the school of Mrs. Coomes 
was started, it must be recollected that neither a church nor a court of 
justice had yet been opened at Harrodsburg; that many men had already 
started back to Virginia from fear of Indians; that a number of the com- 
panions of Daniel Boone had just fallen while assisting him in making a 
Toad from Wataga to Boonesboro. 

Another school was kept at McAfee's station, near Harrodsburg, in the 
year 1777, by John May. His pupils were the children of the McAfee 
families just arrived from Virginia. Some time afterward, this teacher fell 
a victim to the wiles of the Indians in a fight upon the Ohio river. Ere 
long, he was followed to the grave by another noted teacher of Kentucky, 
who lost his life in the forests of Ohio. 

" Deep in the wild and solemn woods, 
Unknown to white man's track, 
John Filson went, one autumn day, 
But never more came back." 

At a later period, yet another teacher was taken prisoner by the Indians, 
adopted by them, and dressed in their own peculiar costume. After a short 
stay among the savages, he escaped and returned to Maysville, where he 
was warmly welcomed by his former pupils. These facts are incidentally 
shown by the imperfect records of our State. A more complete narrative 
would doubtless disclose schools broken up by the Indians, pupils carried 
into captivity, and other teachers killed, or sent as prisoners to the British 
garrisons in the North-west. 



672 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The third school was that of Joseph Doniphan, in the old fort at Boones- 
boro, in 1779. AH that is known of Mr. Doniphan and his school is to be 
found in the history of Dr. Richard H. Collins. When Mr. Doniphan 
came to Boonesboro in the spring of 1778, Daniel Boone was a prisoner of 
the Shawanees, at Chillicothe. Colonel George Rogers Clark, at the head 
of his regiment, had already taken up his line of march for Illinois. What 
inducements brought Mr. Doniphan to Kentucky, or led him to teach, we 
are not informed. The school was taught in the summer of 1779. Mr. 
Doniphan was then a young man, twenty-two years of age. The patrons of 
his school are not certainly known, but the author has lately been informed, 
by Dr. Richard H. Collins, that there are grandchildren of Joseph Doniphan 
now living, who have heard this pioneer teacher say that he taught the 
children of Daniel Boone in this fort school. A tradition which has long 
lingered about Boonesboro includes the children of Nathaniel Hart, Jesse 
Oldham, and Richard Calloway among his pupils. The nurrtber of his 
pupils amounted to seventeen in all. From the known customs of the day, 
it is probable that most of the salary of Mr. Doniphan was paid in tobacco, 
which was then a legal tender. That which was not so paid was probably 
commuted for bear bacon, buffalo steak, or jerked venison. It is possible 
that Mr. Doniphan did not find the school profitable, as we learn he had 
returned to Virginia the next year, and was discharging the duties of a 
justice of the peace in Stafford county. At that period, justices of the peace 
in Virginia received no pay for their services, and none but the best men 
were appointed to the office. This would indicate that Mr. Doniphan was 
a man of standing in the community where he lived. In fact, this was true 
of many of the early teachers of Kentucky. Most of them were also en- 
gaged in the business of surveying, which was both an honorable and 
lucrative calling at that time. Some of the best early governors of Ken- 
tucky were teachers and surveyors. if 

A manuscript arithmetic, said to have been used in the Boonesborc^' 
school, made in 1768, by Mr. John Sleeps, of Virginia, and brought to the 
Boonesboro fort by Mr. William Calk, is still preserved in the family of 
Captain Thomas Calk, near Mount Sterling; but whether this was used as a 
text-book in the fort school of Mr. Doniphan can not be determined with 
certainty. As a number of such manuscript books upon arithmetic, sur- 
veying, and geography, have been found among the effects of pioneer 
families, it is probable that some books of this kind were used in the fort 
schools at Harrodsburg, Boonesboro, and Lexington. It is known, how- 
ever, that printed books, such as Watts' Hymns, Gulliver's Travels, and the 
New Testament, were brought by the earliest explorers and hunters; so that 
printed school books may have come to the State in the same way, and been 
used in the fort schools. It is believed that the New Testament was used 
as a reading book in all these schools. As illustrating this practice, we give 
the following query from the Marble Creek Church, addressed to the Elk- 



THE FIRST BOOKS PRINTED. 673 

horn association in 1798: "Is it consistent with our duty to God and our 
children, to have them taught while at school to read works of human insti- 
tution, until they are well acquainted with reading the Scriptures ? Has not 
the reading of such books a tendency to lead their tender minds into a dis- 
esteem of the Bible ? " The answer was that other books might be used if 
moral in their sentiment. 

From the best information in possession of the author, it is believed that 
the spelling-book mostly used in the fort schools was that of Thomas Dil- 
worth, an English teacher. It is probable the smaller children were furnished 
with a paddle, which had their letters and a, b, c's printed upon it. When 
the paddle was finished, the children could then own a Dilworth speller. 
This was certainly the practice in 1789. The practice of schools shortly 
subsequent to the fort schools makes it somewhat probable that the geog- 
raphy of William Guthrie and Dilworth's Arithmetic were also used in the 
fort schools. Soon after 1783, we find the arithmetic of William Horton and 
Murray's Grammar used in some of the Kentucky schools. 

As early as 1798, two school-books, the Kentucky Primer and Kentucky 
Speller, had been printed in this State, at Washington, the old county-seat 
of Mason county. Harrison's English Grammar was printed at Frankfort 
in the same year. Other school-books, such as the Kentucky Preceptor, 
the Western Selections, the Union Primer, and Horton's Arithmetic, were 
printed at Lexington in 1805. Many of these books were used in some of 
our early schools. The spelling-book of Webster was printed at Lexington 
in 18 1 6, and probably superseded that of Dilworth about that time. Speci- 
mens of some of these Kentucky school-books are now in possession of 
Colonel R. T. Durrett, of Louisville. 

The fourth school was that of John McKinney, in the fort at Lexington, 
in 1780. Though little is known of the school, it has, perhaps, acquired 
more celebrity than any of the fort schools, from the famous adventure of its 
teacher with the wild cat in 1783. Accounts of this remarkable fight are to 
be found elsewhere. The fight itself and the alarm occasioned by it brought 
the entire garrison together within the fort. It is conjectured by Bradford 
that the conduct of the cat was so strange it must have been mad; but, if 
so, the serious consequences which usually attend the bites of mad animals 
did not follow in this case. 

The teacher, McKinney, must have been a man of some force of char- 
acter, as Dr. Collins informs us that he afterward became a member of the 
Virginia House of Delegates, a member of the first Kentucky Legislature, 
and a delegate to the convention which framed the first Constitution of our 
State. 

The fifth school in Kentucky was of a different kind. It was a public 
seminary, and as such has an important bearing upon the first school system 
of Kentucky. It became the model after which all our other public schools 
were fashioned when Kentucky became a State. The man who was most 

43 



674 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

instrumental in establishing this school was Colonel John Todd, who fell at 
the battle of Blue Licks. Colonel Todd was a member of the Virginia Leg- 
islature in 1780. Through his representations, that body was made to see 
that certain lands in the county of Kentucky belonging to British subjects, 
not sold under the law of escheats and forfeitures, might at a future day be 
valuable as a fund for the education of the children of Kentucky, and thus 
conferred an inestimable boon to Kentucky. 

Aside from many other facts marking Colonel Todd as a leader in his 
day, this act alone would give him an important place in the history of Ken- 
tucky. The State has probably received more reputation from the establish- 
ment of Transylvania University than from the bloody fights of her sons at 
Blue Licks, Bryan's station, Logan's fort, or elsewhere. The services of the 
graduates of this school have given a renow^n to our Commonwealth which 
will make Kentucky live in history when border fights with Indians are for- 
gotten. 

Among all the delegates from the different counties of Kentucky to the 
Virginia Legislature, Colonel John Todd is the only one known to have 
made a working record upon the subject of Kentucky schools. The lives of 
Benjamin Logan, Squire Boone, John Floyd, Richard Callaway, Green Clay, 
and other representatives from the Kentucky counties are singularly lacking 
in this respect. Their brilliant campaigns against the Indians do not en- 
tirely make up for this deficiency. 

In the years 1780 and 1783, the Virginia Legislature endowed Transyl- 
vania Seminary by giving it twenty thousand acres of land. The school was 
to be established in the county of Kentucky as soon as the circumstances of 
the county and the state of its funds would permit. The land given w^as ex- 
empted from public tax. The professors and students were exempted from 
militia duty. The fidelity of the teachers and the diligence of the students 
were to be ascertained by annual examinations. On its board of trustees 
were placed many leading men in the district of Kentucky. In this list we 
find the names of William Christian, Isaac Shelby, Stephen Trigg, Benjamin 
Logan, John Todd, George Rogers Clark, John Craig, David Rice, Robert 
Johnson, Walker Daniel, Christopher Greenup, James Speed, and others. 
The law of Virginia endowing this school, in assigning reasons for the gift, 
declared in the preamble " that it was to the interest of the Commonwealth 
always to encourage and promote every design which may tend to the im- 
provement of the mind and the diffusion of useful knowledge, even among 
the most remote citizens, whose situation in a barbarous neighborhood and 
a savage intercourse might otherwise render them unfriendly to science." 

Little, indeed, did the authors of this law, in the humility of their antici- 
pations, think that they were giving birth to one of the most distinguished 
institutions that ever sprang from Virginia — one which afterward poured its 
floods of science upon hundreds, one which was destined to throw a luster 
upon their names, perhaps unmerited and, it may be, unexpected. Bi 



ESTABLISHING TRANSYLVANIA SEMINARY. 67} 

while we admire the humanity of the preamble, it would be unkind not tc 
ascribe to them the consequences of the law. 

Never was an institution of learning more in need of vigilant, brave, and 
faithful trustees to guard its title and interests than was Transylvania Sem- 
inary. The adverse claimants were the Shawanees and Wyandottes in the 
North and the Cherokees and Creeks in the South. No court of equity or 
common law had jurisdiction of the matters at issue. The mode of trial 
was by battle, in which the contestants were armed with the tomahawk, 
scalping-knife, and rifle. The contest 0|:)ened at Little mountain, where 
Captain James Estill gave his famous command: "Every man to his man, 
and every man to his tree." The fight swept around over the battlefield of 
Blue Licks, where Colonel John Todd, the founder of the school, and 
Stephen Trigg, one of its most accomplished trustees, fell by the hands of 
the savages. It ended on the river Thames, in Canada, when Colonel Rich- 
ard M. Johnson gave the battle-cry: "Remember the Raisin! " 

The act establishing the Transylvania Seminary provided that the first 
meeting of its trustees should be held at John Crow's station, near Danville, 
on the second Monday in November, 1783, and thereafter at any convenient 
place in the district. The first meeting was accordingly held at the place and 
time named. This meeting was a memorable one in the early educational 
history of the State. The whole subject of establishing a public institution 
of learning in the district was discussed by earnest men in all its bearings 
upon the welfare of the future State of Kentucky. The foremost lawyers, 
doctors, ministers, and military officers of the district were there. The 
meeting was presided over by the venerable David Rice. Walker Daniel, 
Robert Johnson, Caleb Wallace, John Craig, Isaac Shelby, and Samuel Mc- 
Dowell, all gave the benefit of their counsel. James Speed, Christopher 
Greenup, and Willis Green were among the prominent speakers. Future 
governors of the State, founders of synods and presbyteries, judges of the 
Appellate Court, and judges of circuit courts were alike present. 

After a thorough discussion of the subject, it was agreed by these earnest 
men in the forest of Kentucky that the prosperity and happiness of the ris- 
ing young State was intimately connected with the liberal education of its 
people. These assembled guardians of the welfare of the district were too 
sensible of the value of knowledge to desire to bequeath to their children an 
inheritance of ignorance. They were too generous to disregard the welfare 
of those who were to come after them. 

The result of the meeting was that a call was made upon the people of 
the district to increase the endowment already given by Virginia to Tran- 
sylvania Seminary, by the aid of additional private subscriptions. It was 
found on trial to be impossible to do so. The condition of the district 
would not yet permit it. In fact, the call for pecuniary aid to Transylvania 
Seminary was made at an unpropitious time for the people of the district. 
Aside from the poverty always incident to settlement in a new country, aside 



676 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

from the financial crash then pending upon the close of the Revolutionary- 
war, the devastating ravages and robberies of the Indians along our whole 
border were then at their height. Several of the most important campaigns 
of Clark and Logan, in the North-west, and of Whitley and Montgomery, 
in the South, had not yet been made. 

The first donation to the new seminary came from a distant stranger, the 
Rev. John Todd, of Louisa county, Virginia. In March, 1784, this gentle- 
man, as an encouragement to science, gave to Transylvania Seminary a 
small library of books and some philosophical apparatus. At the time this 
donation was made, it was highly appreciated in Kentucky. There were then 
no newspapers in the district. Only a few wealthy families from Virginia 
had any books, and those were of an inferior class. The library and ap- 
paratus were afterward brought to Kentucky by John Mosely, a delegate 
to the Virginia Legislature, and deposited for a time at the house of Levi 
Todd. 

Before the close of 1784, the trustees of the Transylvania Seminary or- 
dered a grammar school to be opened in Lincoln county, near the residence 
of the Rev. David Rice. This school was opened on the 25th day of May, 
1785, with James Mitchell as principal, at a salary of four hundred dollars- 
per annum. Transylvania Seminary was thus opened and continued dur- 
ing the scenes of the separation conventions at Danville, in 1785-8. The 
quietude of the school hours must have often been broken by the stormy 
debates occurring in the old log court-house in Danville. The students 
must have often seen the manly form of Isaac Shelby, and the tall and con- 
templative figure of Benjamin Logan, as they rode into Danville to these 
successive conventions. Frequent visits to Danville by General George 
Rogers Clark, attractive by the manliness of his deportment, and the intel- 
ligence of his conversation, must have furnished occasions to the students 
for seeing this Hannibal of the West. The}'' must frequently have looked, 
upon the person of General James W'ilkinson, with his bland manners, easy 
address, firm gait, and beaming countenace. Occasionally, they must have- 
heard the inflammatory and eloquent speeches of Wilkinson upon his favorite 
topics of the free navigation of the Mississippi, and the evils suffered by Ken- 
tucky from her political connection with the distant State, Virginia. They 
also listened to the appeals of Judge George Muter and Colonel Thomas 
Marshall to the convention not to make a constitution for Kentucky, and 
erect the district into an independent State, except in accordance with the 
laws of Virginia. 

Those were stirring times in Kentucky. News of fresh hostilities by the 
Indians on the old wilderness road, and of outrages by the Shawanees and 
other tribes upon the Wabash, were daily reaching Crow's station, where 
the seminary was located. The faithful teacher was true to the discharge 
of duty amidst all these discouragements. The seminary held its daily ses- 
sions. The charter of the school which was thus kept showed upon its face 



IJ 



I 



LEXINGTON THE LITERARY CAPITAL. 677 

that it contemplated a school in the neighborhood of savages, where the 
fierce war-whoop of the Indian might often be heard. It was Virginia's 
training-school for the children of her citizens, in the most remote regions 
of the Commonwealth. 

The school thus opened was started shortly after Kentucky was given a 
district court. Its bearings for good upon the future destiny of Kentucky 
were perhaps not inferior to those of the court. Its effects upon the pros- 
perity of the country, upon the standing and character of the district, were 
not inferior to those of any institution in Kentucky originating at the same 
time. Yet some of our historians have made conspicuous figures of the 
court and its officers, while the teachers and promoters of this school are 
passed in comparative silence. The bickerings and short sighted follies of 
early politicians, as shown in the separative conventions at Danville, are all 
noted as matters of serious import, while the fidelity of teachers who stood 
true to their trust in that early day, when the school-path was not secure 
from the savage stroke, is passed unnoticed. The site of the old hewed- 
log court-house at Danville, where the first political wrangling of the day 
occurred, has been carefully preserved, but the location of the old school- 
house, where public education first began its career, at Crow's station, in 
Kentucky, is unknown. 

After the seminary was located at Danville, strenuous efforts were again 
made to raise money for it by private subscriptions. These attempts to 
increase the endowment all failed. 

Early in 1789, the board of trustees carried the institution to the north 
side of the Kentucky river, hoping to find at Lexington a more liberal spirit 
to the cause of education. A house standing on the public grounds at Lex- 
ington was first used as a school house. As an encouragement to the school, 
on the ist of January, 1791, the Virginia Assembly passed an act permitting 
this house to be occupied free of rent, so long as it was not needed for 
other purposes. 

The crossing of Kentucky river from its southern to the northern side, 
by this important educational factor of the State, contributed much, in after 
years, to transfer the political supremacy to the northern side of the river. 
Lexington became the literary capital of the West. The seminary was now 
slowly rising into some importance, but was still sadly deficient in the funds 
necessary to operate it. Subscriptions, loans, and even a lottery, were all 
resorted to as means for raising money, but without effect. The pioneers 
were too poor in moneyed resources. 

At last, a company of gentlemen in Lexington purchased the necessary 
grounds for the school, erected a two-story brick building, and presented 
them to the trustees of Transylvania, by whom they were accepted in 1793. 
This result was not reached without calling into requisition the services of 
many of the most prominent men in early Kentucky history. Harry Innes, 
John Bradford, John Campbell, John Hawkins, and others, were at different 



678 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

times engaged as chairman of the board, while other famiHar names appear 
as its active members. 

Meantime, some good private schools were growing up in different parts 
of the State. John Filson and John McKinney were both teaching school 
at Lexington, in 1783. Filson was then engaged in gathering material for 
his celebrated history and map of Kentucky. Whether this pioneer map of 
the State was ever used in any of the schools the writer can not say, but the 
probabilities are in favor of its having been used in some of them. A series 
of questions upon the map of Kentucky has lately been found among the 
papers of Mr. William Calk, now in possession of Mr. Thomas Calk, of 
Mount Sterling, to which no known map of Kentucky was adapted, except 
that of Filson. 

In December, 1787, as we learn from the history of Dr. Richard H. 
Collins, Elijah Craig was advertising a classical and scientific school, to be 
kept at Georgetown. Shortly afterward we find James Priestly at the head 
of a classical school in Bardstown. The Salem Academy, at which Mr. 
Priestly thus taught, was incorporated by the Virginia House of Delegates, 
in 1788. Joshua Fry had also then started another school in Mercer county, 
which was attended by a number of pupils, who afterward attained much 
distinction. Samuel Finley was teaching in Madison, with John Boyle as 
one of his pupils. Later along, in 1793, log school houses, built by the 
joint efforts of the neighboring farmers, were springing up at widely dis- 
tant points throughout the State. The functions of the teachers in these 
country schools were to instruct in reading, writing, and ciphering to the 
Rule of Three. We learn from Dr. Drake, who attended some of these 
country schools, that the teachers were not versed in " grammar, etymology, 
and the definitions." 

Some of the religious denominations were beginning to organize schools 
for training the children of people of their own persuasion, at this period. 
A denominational school of much interest was Bethel Academy, located in 
Jessamine county, upon a high bluff of the Kentucky river, and established 
in 1794. It was the first institution of learning erected by the Methodist 
Church m the valley of the Mississippi. The grounds of the academy con- 
tained one hundred acres of land. The school-house was large, but was 
never completely finished. The building of this house rendered the pecu- 
niary means of early Kentucky Methodist preachers uncertain, for they 
were always begging for the school. The students of the school were sub- 
ject to the regulation of the Western Methodist Conference. These rules 
compelled them to arise at five o'clock in the morning, and retire at nine 
o'clock at night. All games were prohibited. Idleness was punished by 
confinement, and a room was built for that purpose. The course of study 
was that of a high classical school. Its first teacher was Valentine Cook, 
one of the great men of his day. The Western Conference was often held 
at this house. In reaching it, the ministers, who came mostly from the 



GRANTS OF LANDS. 679 

Holston country, incurred many perils. They traversed the Wilderness 
Path in Indian file, living upon biscuit, broiled bacon, dried beef, and tree 
sugar. Sometimes the path was watched by old Doublehead, a noted Indian 
chief, who was under a vow to be avenged upon the whites. This school 
was afterward incorporated and endowed by the State, with six thousand 
acres of land. 

The first public school established and incorporated by the Kentucky 
Legislature was the Kentucky Academy. We learn from Davidson's His- 
tory of Presbyterianism in Kentucky, that, in 1795, David Rice and James 
Blythe went to the Eastern States to solicit subscriptions to endow this 
school. They obtained ten thousand dollars. Of this, George Washington 
and John Adams, the president and vice-president, each contributed one 
hundred dollars, and Aaron Burr, fifty dollars. President Washington made 
special inquiries as to the state of education in Kentucky. This institution 
was located at Pisgah, near Lexington. In 1798, it was endowed with six 
thousand acres of land by the Kentucky Legislature. 

Later in the course of the same year, the State of Kentucky, with a 
liberal spirit which will always deserve commendation, gave six thousand 
acres of land to each county in the State, for the purpose of establishing 
seminaries of learning. As new counties were subsequently formed, new 
grants were generally made. The first public schools thus endowed were 
all seminaries, somewhat lower than a college. In the act chartering them, 
it was left wholly in the discretion of the trustees, ' ' what subjects should 
be taught in these academies, whether the English language, writing, arith- 
metic, mathematics, and geometry only, or the dead and foreign languages 
and other sciences generally taught in academies and colleges." 

The object of establishing these academies, as expressed by the Legisla- 
ture of 1798, was "to illuminate as far as possible the minds of the people 
at large, and more especially to give them a knowledge of those facts which 
history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages 
and countries, they may be able to know ambition in all its shapes, and 
prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." 

Thus was inaugurated the first extensive system of public education in 
Kentucky. It consisted of one public academy in each county, with a large 
landed endowment. These endowments were well guarded by the law of 
1798 creating them, but subsequent acts vested the trustees with wide pow- 
ers of disposing of these lands, and thus opened a door for the ultimate 
destruction of the endowments by scheming or incompetent men. 

These seminaries afforded opportunities to the people of the respective 
counties for obtaining a substantial grammar-school education. Attendance 
upon them was less expensive than upon the university at Lexington. The 
cost of tuition and board might often be paid in country produce, instead 
of money. Many of our early lawyers, doctors, ministers, and other pro- 
fessional men obtained all their education in these seminaries. 



68o HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In 1798, Kentucky Academy was united with Transylvania Seminary. 
This union was the origin of Transylvania University. 

About the beginning of the year 1800, as we learn from the "Sketches 
of Louisville," written by Colonel R. T. Durrett for the Coin-ier-Journal, 
there were a number of elementary schools in that city. They were kept 
in log-houses, with board roofs and puncheon floors. The Louisville teach- 
ers of this period were Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Langdon, Mr. New, and Mr. 
Todd. 

Prior to this date, in 1792, Kentucky had become an independent State. 
Two constitutions had been made for her before the beginning of the pres- 
ent century. Both documents were silent upon the important subject of 
education. It is claimed for Mr. George Nicholas that he was mainly the 
author of the first constitution. He has been deservedly praised for many 
of its provisions, but this omission was a serious defect. The second con- 
stitution, as we learn from the historian, Humphrey Marshall, was made by 
men of very similar characteristics to those who framed the first, with the 
exchange of John Breckinridge for George Nicholas. Breckinridge had just 
come from Virginia, where the important topic of education had already 
engaged the attention of Jefferson, Pendleton, and Wythe. But the second 
constitution, mostly the work of Breckinridge, is silent upon this great sub- 
ject. Neither do any of the changes claimed to have been made by Brecki 
inridge in the general statutory law of the State embrace this topic. Like 
omission may be alleged against our politicians too often since. 

These omissions in our organic and statutory law are the more striking, 
as the celebrated congressional ordinance, providing so liberally for educa-i 
tion in the North-western Territory, had then been passed, and the subject 
of education was attracting the attention of politicians throughout the United 
States. The brilliant campaign in the North-west which had been made by 
General George Rogers Clark, a distinguished son of Kentucky, aided by 
his famous regiment of Kentuckians, had already furnished a school fund for 
Connecticut and material for the endowment of universities, colleges, andfl 
free schools in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It had 
just enabled the American minister, in the treaty with England at Paris, to 
claim the Mississippi river as the western boundary of the United States. 

While Connecticut and other sister States were already beginning to di- 
vide up this vast territory won by Clark, and make it a foundation for State 
school funds and endowments, no protest had yet been heard from Ken- 
tucky as to her right to a share in this splendid conquest for purposes of 
education. Two governors of the State, Shelby and Garrard, had already 
issued various messages, with no allusion to this vital interest of the State. 

The political resolutions of 1798, the acquisition of Louisiana Territory, 
the free navigation of the Mississippi, and the reform of the criminal statutes 
were the exciting topics of interest among the politicians of the day. The 
revenue and penitentiary laws of the State were matters of frequent men- 



EDUCATION ENTERING STATE POLITICS. 68l 

tion, but the bearing of popular education upon these branches of our State 
poHcy seems to have been overlooked. 

The great cause of female education had not yet received any public aid 
from the State. The girls of the Commonwealth were obliged to put up with 
the scanty training which could be obtained in a few promiscuous country 
schools whose teachers, we are informed by Felix Grundy, were often desti- 
tute both of a knowledge of polite literature and good manners. Only two 
schools in the State — that of Rev. John Lyle, at Paris, and that of Mrs. Keats, 
at Washington, Mason county — then proposed to give them the benefits of an 
ordinary grammar-school education. The opposite sex had engrossed the 
means of knowledge and improvement, and suffered female talents to be 
neglected. 

The earliest allusion to education which we are able to find in a State 
paper of Kentucky is in the message of Governor Christopher Greenup, 
dated December 31, 1807. This message, after alluding to the importance 
of education, urged that the state of our wealth and population was such 
that the Legislature could then look to the establishment of a more enlarged 
system of education than yet existed in the State. This document shows 
that a higher education for the few, and not a general distribution of ele- 
mentary learning among the masses, was then regarded by the governor as 
the true policy of the State. The message also shows, in other parts, that 
the young men of our State were even :hen beginning to go North for their 
collegiate training. This notice in the governor's message is important, as 
it shows that the subject had at last forced its way into State politics. It was 
getting a feeble hearing before the people. 

Early in 1808, General Green Clay, of Madison county, became a can- 
didate for governor, and announced himself "in favor of a multiplication 
of the means and institutions of education." He thus became the first can- 
didate for governor who ran in part upon a pronounced educational platform. 
His successful competitor, Governor Charles Scott, also favorably mentioned 
the subject in his message, December 22, 181 1. 

The cause made slow progress during the war of 181 2. The second ad- 
ministration of Governor Shelby added much to the military reputation of 
Kentucky, but little was done to improve the schools. The attention of the 
people was engrossed by the war in the North-west and at New Orleans. 
The surrender of Hull, the siege of Fort Meigs, the defeat of Winchester, 
the massacre at Frenchtown, the victories upon Lake Erie, the Thames, and 
at New Orleans crowded the columns of our newspapers, to the exclusion of 
everything else. The flag of the country was unfurled in mest of our coun- 
try towns, and, at the call for volunteers, often teacher and pupils alike fol- 
lowed the standards of Clay, Shelby, Johnson, Caldwell, Poague, and Desha 
in search of Proctor and Tecumseh in the North-west, or the banners of 
Thomas, Adair, and Slaughter in search of Packenham and his veterans at 
New Orleans. Some of the best descriptions of Dudley's defeat and of 



682 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Clay's entry into Fort Meigs were written by pupils from Kentucky. Some 
of the students were taken prisoners, and ran the gauntlet under the eye of 
British officers. Some were saved from slaughter by the humanity of Te- 
cumseh. 

During this stormy period, Transylvania University was at such a low- 
ebb that it was surpassed in efficiency by many seminaries and private 
schools in the State. It is true that a professorship of law and politics had 
been created in the institution as early as 1799; George Nicholas had been 
appointed professor of law, and Drs. Fred Ridgely and Samuel Brown, pro- 
fessors of medicine; but these appointments were nominal, and no lectures 
had yet been delivered upon these subjects. The institution had been 
greatly afflicted at different periods, by distracting divisions among its board 
of trustees. Even while Transylvania was a seminary, the election of Harry 
Toulmin, as principal, though strongly recommended by Thomas Jefferson, 
had led to serious differences among the trustees. In fact, this election was- 
the avowed cause of setting up another school in opposition to Transylvania 
Seminary, which was effected in the estabUshment of Kentucky Academy. 
The charges made in 1801, against Mr. James Moore, one of the professors 
of Transylvania University, again led to serious differences in the board. 
The subsequent election of President Holley was at first followed by like 
discord. 

About this period, the schools in the city of Louisville were growing in 
importance. As we learn from the sketches of Louisville schools by Colonel , 
Durrett, these schools, while in an advancing condition, were occasionally 
characterized by scenes of boyish insubordination, indicating the spirit and 
temper of the times. In April, 1809, the first show came to the city. The 
exhibition of an elephant, which accompanied the show, caused a general 
uprising in the schools, and a demand for holiday. The refusal to grant a 
request by the pupils of one of the schools to attend the show led to a small 
insurrection in the school, and a general overhauling of the teacher by its- 
pupils; but the spirit of fun and good humor which attended the affair i 
showed that nothing serious was meant. 

Aside from these occasionably laughable incidents, the great cause of 
education was slowly growing in the State. In his message of December 2, 
1 8 16, Governor Gabriel Slaughter uses the following language upon the 
subject : 

"I presume you will agree with me that nothing in this Government, 
whose firmest rock is public sentiment, is more worthy of your attention 
than the promotion of education, not only by endowing colleges or universi- 
ties upon a liberal plan, but by diffusing, through the country, seminaries and 
schools for the education of all classes of the community making them free 
to all poor children, and the children of poor persons. At an early period, 
there was granted to each county in the State six thousand acres of land for 
the establishment and support of schools; this has been productive of some 



1 



MISTAKES IN THE FIRST SYSTEMS. 68;^ 

good, but the fund has proved inadequate to meet the enlightened and Hb- 
eral views of the Legislature. It is essentially necessary that schools should 
be more diffused to suit the convenience of the people. It is believed there 
are funds within our reach which in a few years would enable us to establish 
through the State a system of education which would be attended with incal- 
culable advantages. Every child born in the State should be considered a 
child of the republic, and educated at the public expense, where the parents 
are unable to do it. To effectuate objects so valuable and desirable, I recom- 
mend an inquiry into the titles of lands stricken off to the State and forfeited ; 
a revision of the law of escheat and for the appointment of escheators, and 
that such lands, with a tax on banks, and such corporations as from their 
nature are proper subjects of taxation, and such part of the dividends on 
the bank stock of the State as can be spared without materially increasing 
the public burdens, may be appropriated for the purpose, establishing an 
extensive and convenient system of education." 

Here we find the germs of a system of education, free for the children 
of the poor alone. This mistake was made in the first systems, both of 
Virginia and Pennsylvania — a mistake which Jefferson says cost Virginia two 
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, tvithout educating a single boy. 

In 1818, the law was passed making Transylvania University a State 
institution. An attempt was now made to build up a great university, under 
the auspices of the State. A moment was seized upon, which, from a com- 
bination of circumstances, was rendered peculiarly propitious for the under- 
taking. We had just emerged from a severe struggle against the colossal 
power of Great Britain. Kentucky ranked high for her recent achievements 
in arms. She now sought to vie as successfully with her sister States in 
matters of education, as she had done in the tented field, where none out- 
stripped her. All eyes turned, as if by previous consent, to Transylvania 
University, as the nursery for an extended and liberal system of education. 
Shortly afterward. Dr. HoUey was called to the presidency. 

Of this appointment, Dr. Charles Caldwell speaks as follows, in his dis- 
course upon the genius and character of Holley : 

"To all the friends of literature this event was a subject of much con- 
gratulation, and much rejoicing. Intelligence of it spread with electrical 
impulse upon the public mind, and almost with electric velocity, not only 
through Kentucky, but the States that surrounded her. It was regarded by 
all as an earnest of the permanent introduction of sound learning and 
science, with their train of numerous and mighty benefactions, into the 
valley of the Mississippi." 

But while this new phase in the affairs of Transylvania University was 
gratifying in the extreme, it did not satisfy the desires of the people of 
Kentucky for primary schools of education. In his message of December 
10, 181 7, Governor Slaughter again returns to the subject, and foreshadows 
our subsequent system of common-school education in the following words : 



684 HISTORY OK KENTUCKY. 

" I beg leave again to bring into vie\v the subject of education, one of 
the first importance that can engage your attention, whether we regard its 
influence on human happiness or the permanency of our repubhcan system. 
Colleges or universities upon a large scale require considerable funds, and 
can not be numerous. The Transylvania University, which had its origin 
in the liberality of our parent State, will soon, it is believed, hold an emi- 
nent rank among the institutions of learning in the United States. I am 
not informed whether its funds are adequate or not, but think it would be 
wise in the Legislature to extend to this institution every aid necessary to 
place it on the most respectable footing. It is hoped and expected that this 
university, situated in one of the most healthy and delightful parts of the 
United States, will render it not only unnecessary for the youth of our own 
State to be sent to distant colleges, but invite the young men of other States 
to finish their education there. There are considerations in favor of a good 
system of education, which strongly address themselves to our pride as a 
State. It should be remembered that Kentucky is the first member of the 
Federal Union that emerged from the Western wilderness, and that she now 
holds a very high standing in the national government. And shall it be 
said that she is unfriendly or even indifferent to learning? Let it rather 
be our boast that Kentucky is as famed for science and the arts as for the 
valor and patriotism of her citizens. To establish a perfect method of edu- 
cation has long been considered by the most enlightened friends of man- 
kind the best means of rendering a people free and happy. I, therefore, 
recommend to you to arrange and adopt a plan extensive, diffusive, and 
convenient to every portion of the community. I would advise that all the 
settled parts of the State be divided into school districts, equal to five or six 
miles square, through the agency of the courts, or in some other manner 
to be prescribed; a school to be established in each district free to all poor 
children, and to be supported, if not entirely, in part at the public expense. 
We have many good scholars, but nothing short of carrying education to 
the neighborhood of every man in the State can satisfy the just claims of 
the people, or fulfill the duty of the Government. Few people are able to 
board their children from home, and unless schools are established conven- 
ient to them, their education will be neglected. The distribution of schools 
in every neighborhood would be attended with many advantages ; they will 
not only improve the mind and moral habits of the youth, but will give 
more permanency and a more settled character to our population. They 
will diffuse much useful instruction among all classes of people, and intro- 
duce a taste for learning and information. They will develop the mental 
riches of the Commonwealth. The experience of the world has proved 
that genius is not confined to any particular order of men ; but providence, 
in bestowing its choicest gift, intelligence, as if to mortify the pride and 
vanity of those who, from birth and fortune, would exalt themselves above 
their fellowmen, delights to raise up the brightest ornaments of humanity 



Mi 



CENTRE COLLEGE INCORPORATED. 685 

from the most obscure and humble conditions of Hfe. To instruct and im- 
prove the rising generation is among the first duties of every American 
statesman. The American people, in establishing their independence and 
republican forms of government, have done much, but much remains yet 
to be done. These States are but recently transplanted from the nursery 
of freedom, and although in a thriving and promising condition, they have 
not acquired such maturity and strength as no longer to need the care and 
skill of the political husbandman. To give success to this experiment of 
freedom, the youth of our country should be qualified to understand and 
enjoy its blessings. In vain have our ancestors bled, in vain did they haz- 
ard everything upon the issue of our revolutionary contest, in vain has our 
country been distinguished by the most sublime and elevated patriotism, if 
the inestimable boon which they achieved is to be lost by a neglect of the 
means necessary to its preservation and progress. While the utility and 
importance of education are generally admitted, yet either because the bene- 
ficial effects appear remote or universal, the subject does not seem to excite 
that lively interest and zeal which are usually awakened by questions of a 
local or personal character. When we reflect that this Government has no 
need of a standing army to sustain or enforce its authority, but for its effi- 
ciency essentially reposes upon the patriotism and intelligence of the great 
body of the people, how obvious is the necessity of providing a system of 
instruction calculated to improve the minds and moral habits of the rising 
generation." 

The country seminaries were now beginning to be considered failures as 
foundations of a system of popular elementary education. The private pri- 
mary schools were gaining upon them in the estimation of the people. The 
question was beginning to be asked, Would it not be better for the State to 
give her aid to primary schools rather than the seminaries ? The latter insti- 
tutions were perishing under what the historian Humphrey Marshall called 
the "disease of bad government and multiplicity." The disposal, manage- 
ment, and control of the lands of each seminary had been left to its trustees. 
There had, consequently, been no uniformity, no general plan, no regular 
adoption of means which could secure success to all. In most instances their 
lands had been sold to speculators, and all the proceeds invested in one 
costly building, which stood as a monument of the folly of its projectors. 
But, notwithstanding the seminaries were now characterized as failures by 
Governor Adair in one of his messages to the Legislature, the spirit of pro- 
moting academical and collegiate education had not yet abated in the Legis- 
lature. On the 2ist of January, 1819, Centre College was incorporated and 
located at Danville. From the "Memoirs of Rev. Thomas Cleland," we 
learn that the application for a charter met with violent opposition from some 
of the adherents of Transylvania University, and some other rival institu- 
tions. The prominent opponent of the college made his appearance in the 
Legislature with his arms filled with books and a servant behind him with a 



686 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

wheel-barrow also loaded with them. He spoke several hours, and made a 
violent philippic to show that the Presbyterians on the other side of the At- 
lantic had always burned with a desire of uniting church and state. When 
he had ended, a member, Colonel James Davidson, a man of much dry 
humor, and a deep, sonorous voice, gravely told a simple anecdote, by way 
of illustrating the terrors which had been so awfully presented: An Irish 
Redemptioner lost himself in the woods one evening. He had heard a 
great deal of the Indians, and the novel sights and sounds around him in- 
spired him with such alarm that he climbed up into a tree for safety and 
spent the sleepless night. On being found next day, he told through what 
perils he had passed. The fire-flies he mistook for the torches of the sav- 
ages in quest of him, while his agitated fancy interpreted the doletul screams 
of the whip-poor-wills into menaces of destruction crying: "Whip him well, 
whip him well, cut and lash, cut and lash," " and the fire flew all the time," 
said he, " like the de'il." In short, he did not know what would have become 
of him had it not been for the " swate, heavenly bairds" (meaning the bull- 
frogs) who kept calling out: " Motheration, motheration." "Now," said 
Colonel Davidson, "when I heard the member conjuring up all those dread 
ful hobgoblins, they appeared to me of the same imaginary character of the 
poor Irishman's terrors, and I felt an irresistible impulse to rise up in my 
place and call out: 'Motheration, motheration.'" The ludicrous anecdote, 
narrated in the dryest manner and with his gravest intonations, convulsed 
the house with laughter. 

The serious and inflammatory speech on the other side was effectually 
neutralized, and the friends of the bill, adroitly seizing the propitious op- 
portunity, hurried it through its final passage before the effect could be coun- 
teracted. 

Immediately after the passage of the charter, the trustees of Centre Col- 
lege, through ex- Governor Shelby, as their chairman, issued an address to 
the people to remove any unfavorable impression which might arise from 
the erection of another college at this particular juncture of our educational 
affairs. The substantial points made in this address were : 

First — That the college was not started with a view to inculcate the par- 
ticular tenets of any religious denomination. 

Second — That the county seminaries did not have the funds necessary to 
furnish a complete literary and scientific education. A number of colleges 
were needed to put the finishing hand to the studies of the pupils in the 
seminaries. 

Third — That Centre College was not started with any purpose to injure 
Transylvania University. 

Fourth — That the interests of literature and science would be promoted 
by establishing two colleges ; that the professors in either would thereby be 
stimulated to greater exertions and the prices of tuition and board kept at 
fair rates. 



THE SECOND PERIOD. 687 

Not many years elapsed before other colleges sprang up at Georgetown. 
Augusta, Bardstown, Princeton, and Harrodsburg. The seminaries, though 
on the decline as late as 1820, still received the benefits of legislative boun- 
ties in the shape of fines and forfeitures appropriated to their use. The 
amounts received from this source varied in the different counties, and were 
probably very unequal. These appropriations in their behalf were strongly 
opposed in the Legislature, but carried by a handsome majority. It was the 
last mark of approval they received at the hands of a generous Legislature. 
Their career had been marked by a spirit of speculation, negligence, and 
fraud on the part of some of their trustees, which worked much injury to the 
cause of education in the State. A few had survived the general shipwreck. 
Among these was Bracken Academy, at Augusta, which, by judicious man- 
agement of its trustees, had accumulated a fund of ten thousand dollars, 
and was now aspiring to become a college. A few others might probably 
be mentioned that escaped the general shipwreck, but they were scarce. 
The seminaries, as created in Kentucky, had been weighed in the balances 
and found wanting after twenty-two years of trial. 

182 1 to 1849. — The succeeding legislation of the State looked to the 
organization of a different class of schools from the seminaries mentioned 
above. The educational policy of the State was changed so as to begin at 
the bottom with primary schools, instead of starting at the top with semina- 
ries, as had previously been done. 

The first legislation under the new departure was the act of December 
18, 182 1, setting apart one-half of the net profits of the Bank of the Com- 
monwealth, as a "literary fund," to be distributed for the support of a 
general system of education. Provisions were made to start the new system 
at as early a date as possible. The "literary fund" at first yielded sixty 
thousand dollars per annum, as a basis for the new enterprise. Hard times 
and increased demands upon the State treasury made sad havoc of this new 
"literary fund," before it reached its promised destination. The profits of 
the Commonwealth's bank stock, which had thus been set apart as a literary 
fund, were used in 1824-25, to assist the revenues of the State, in order to 
prevent a resort to additional taxation. The interests of education were 
thus subordinated to the wants of the State revenue, and a policy inaug- 
urated which afterward worked much injury to the educational interests of 
Kentucky. The "literary fund" was so crippled by this policy, that Ken- 
tucky had no State fund sufficient for the establishment of a system of 
common schools, until she obtained an educational fund from the United 
States Government, as hereafter detailed. Another clause in the same act 
of 1 82 1 gave one-half of the net profits of the branch banks at Lexington 
and Danville, for the benefit of Transylvania University and Centre College, 
respectively. A warm contest in the Legislature arose over these college 
appropriations. The assault was led by Mr. Jesse Noland, of Estill county, 
ably seconded by Mr. Martin Hardin, of Hardin county. Mr. Noland 



688 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

said he was opposed to die adoption of this resolution. The rich men who 
get their children educated at these seminaries ought to pay for it. It was 
an uncommon thing for gentlemen to beg ; and he did not think it was rea- 
sonable to give them anything. The poor might beg. But when he met 
gentlemen in ruffled shirts and iine clothes begging, he did not understand 
it. When he met a poor old man on the road with one eye, or a cripple, 
it was well enough to give him something. But he did not think this was a 
fair game. The Transylvania University and the Centre College have been 
applying here very often; he thought they ought not to be encouraged in it. 
If we are to give money to support schools, he thought it ought to be given 
to support a school in each county for the poor. 

The member from Hardin county took even broader grounds of opposi- 
tion. He claimed that the public derived no benefit from providing for free 
education, especially collegiate education ; that those men who have gotten 
an education by such means, when they come to the bar, or engaged in other 
professions, did not take the less fees on that account. They did not tell 
the people that they had been educated at public expense, and could afford 
to take less for their services on that account. He insinuated that education 
was of but little use, as all the battles of the country had been fought by 
the uneducated classes of society. 

These specious arguments were answered by William Worthington, 
Nathan Anderson, and Robert B. McAfee. To the plea that the battles of 
the country had been fought entirely by uneducated men. Colonel McAfee 
made the following warm response: 

"The gentleman to my right, from Hardin, has asked who are the men 
who sustain you in war, and fight the battles of the country, and he has an* 
swered the question himself by saying, 'the uneducated class of society. 
Does he mean to insinuate that education unnerves the hero's arm ? Does 
he deduce from this that learning dampens that expanded glow and ardor 
which pervades the patriot's breast? I presume not, sir. Who were they 
who shed the first blood in the West, in the late glorious struggle with Great 
Britain? Were they not educated men? Yes, sir— the first impulse was 
given by a Daveiss, a Hart, a Meade, an Allen, and a Montgomery — all 
men of polished education. Education produced in them a ' fondness for' 
noble daring,' impelled them to the tented field, and their deaths were glo- 
rious, as their lives were blameless. Yes, sir, on the banks of the Wabash^ 
and of Raisin, those heroes lie, the snows of heaven their winding-sheet^ 
but entombed in the hearts of their countrymen. I, sir, feel as much grati- 
tude for the services of the unlettered as the lettered soldier; but I protest 
against the idea that education enervates the system, or is incompatible with 
patriotism." _ 

Colonel McAfee might have further added that, in fact, there was a close ^ 
connection between the subject of university education, the cause of liberty, 
and a republican government. The history of the Revolutionary war shows 



J 



REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE. 689 

that we are indebted for the first great impulse which was given to pubHc 
sentiment to the powerful and energetic pens of those whose pure taste was 
cultivated within the walls of William and Mary, Princeton, and Cambridge. 
Throughout the administrations of Governors Slaughter and Adair the cause 
of higher education in Kentucky, as represented by Transylvania Urfiversity, 
received a warm support from the executive department of Government. 
The impolicy and danger of sending our young men to other States for col- 
legiate education was strongly set forth in their messages. They portrayed 
the great amount of additional consideration and luster which the Common- 
wealth would receive from the successful operation of such an institution in 
our midst, as Transylvania University then promised to be. Their messages 
abounded in suggestions as to the best methods of raising funds to give the 
university a liberal endowment. 

Already the lights of Transylvania were beginning to appear, and their 
influence to become perceptible through Kentucky and the valley of the 
Mississippi. Among its distinguished graduates were Richard M. Johnson, 
John Rowan, William T. Barry, Jefferson Davis, Elijah Hise, Robert J. 
Breckinridge, Benjamin W. Dudley, Charles S. Morehead, and many others. 
Dr. Richard H. Collins characterizes them "as statesmen, jurists, orators, 
surgeons, and divines, among the greatest in the world's history — men of 
mark in all the professions and callings of busy life." 

Early in the latter part of 1821, the large landed appropriations, which 
had been made by Congress, to promote the cause of common-school edu- 
cation in many of the new States, at last began to attract the attention of 
the people of Kentucky. The Legislatures of Maryland and New Hamp- 
shire sent strong documents to the Kentucky Legislature upon the injustice 
of this action to the old States. 

A legislative committee, to whom was referred the papers of Maryland 
and New Hampshire, made the following report : 

"That the communications submitted to them embrace reports and reso- 
lutions thereon, adopted by the Legislatures of these States, and the objects 
of which are to direct the attention of Congress and the Legislatures of the 
several States of the Union to the national lands, as a source from which 
appropriations for the purposes of education may, with justice, be claimed 
by those States for which no such appropriations have yet been made. 

"Your committee, highly sensible of the importance of the fact that 
the most effectual means of achieving and perpetuating the liberties of any 
country is to enlighten the minds of its citizens, by a system of education 
adapted to the means of the most extensive class of its population, and alive 
to any just means within their power for the advancement of this great ob- 
ject, not only within their own State, but alike to all the members of the 
great political family of which they are a part, and for whose common in- 
terests they are thus united, have, Avith much interest, examined the facts 
stated and arguments used in said reports, and do not hesitate to concur in 

44 



690 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the opinions therein expressed, that the national lands are strictly a national 
fund, and that, from the extent and nature of the fund, appropriations may 
with greater propriety be extended to all the States of the Union. 

"It is deemed unnecessary, in a report of this kind, to enter at large 
into all the arguments that might be used to establish the opinion above 
expressed. A few of the facts which have presented themselves in the in- 
vestigation of this subject are submitted. 

"It is ascertained that all the States and Territories whose waters fall 
into the Mississippi have been amply provided for by the laws of Congress 
relating to the survey and sale of the public lands, except the State of Ken- 
tucky. 

"Why those appropriations should have stopped short of Kentucky, your 
committee are not able to see, especially when they take into consideration 
its situation to other States of the Union, the contest it has maintained in 
establishing itself, protecting at the same time the western borders of the old 
States, and extending the more northern and western settlements. 

" Kentucky long stood alone in a forest of almost boundless extent, 
separated from her parent settlements by extensive ranges of mountains and 
forests, fit receptacles for her savage enemies, and by which she was cut off 
from the succor, and almost from the knowledge, of her friends, yet main- 
taining her stand, and at the same time forming a barrier by which the more 
eastern States were protected from the common enemy, she has not only 
established herself, but has also gone forward to the estabUshment and sup- 
port of those States and Territories which now form the great national 
domain, which is the subject of this report. 

" Notwithstanding many arguments might be used, which would go to 
prove that Kentucky has claims to appropriations of those lands, without 
extending the system to all the other States, yet your committee believe that 
such arguments are not necessary, and that a few facts here submitted will 
prove that those appropriations may be made general, without materially 
affecting the national revenue. ■ 

" Relying upon the apparent correctness of the able document before the 
committee, received from the State of Maryland, it appears that the total 
amount of literary appropriations made to the new States and Territories will 
amount to 14,576,569 acres; that the additional amount required to extend 
the same system to those States for which no such appropriations have yet 
been made would be 9,307,760 acres; that the State of Kentucky, as her 
part of such appropriation, would be entitled to 1,066,665 acres; and esti-J 
mating the whole quantity of unsold lands, yet owned by the United States,J 
at 400,000,000 acres, that the additional amount required to extend the same 
scale of appropriations to all the States which have not received any woulc 
not amount to two and a half per centum upon the landed fund as above. 

"Relying, therefore, upon the foregoing considerations as sufficient foi 
their purpose, and believing that the magnanimity of their sister States inl 



i\ 



MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR METCALFE. 691 

the West will produce a unanimity in the Congress of the United States 
upon this subject, your committee are prepared to close this report, and beg 
leave to recommend the adoption of the following resolutions: 

' ' Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commoiu 
wealth of Kentucky, That each of the United States has an equal right, in 
its just proportion, to participate in the benefit of the public lands, the com- 
mon property of the Union. 

'■'■Resolved, That the executive of this State be requested, as soon as 
practicable, to transmit copies of the foregoing report and resolutions to their 
senators and representatives in Congress, with a request that they will lay 
the same before their respective houses, and use their endeavors to procure 
the passage of a law to appropriate to the use of the State of Kentucky, 
for the purposes of education, such a part of the public lands of the United 
States as may be equitable and just." 

These resolutions were passed with much unanimity. Governor Thomas 
Metcalfe afterward followed up the subject in December, 1828, in a ringing 
message to the Legislature, urging the right of Kentucky to the proceeds of 
the public lands for purposes of education. The grounds taken by the 
governor were substantially those urged in the legislative report of 1821. 
The right of the State to this donation was subsequently asserted by Gov- 
ernors James T. Morehead and Robert P. Letcher, in messages of like 
tenor. In a later report made to the Legislature at a subsequent session, it 
was claimed that if Kentucky was given a fair distributive share of the 
public lands, her fund received from that source would amount to ten mill- 
ion dollars. 

The message of Governor Metcalfe took another step in advance, by 
maintaining the position that the daughters of the people of the State were 
no less entitled to the paternal care and beneficence of Kentucky, in the 
distribution of public benefactions, than were their sons. By the most per- 
suasive considerations, he urged the Legislature to confer upon the State the 
honor of having taken the first step for the promotion of female education. 

By this time, the disadvantages of the seminary system for purposes of 
primary education, as compared with local country schools brought home to 
the people in every neighborhood, began to be felt by all. These disad- 
vantages were strongly set forth in messages of Governor Joseph Desha to 
the Legislature. 

At its October session, 1821, the General Assembly appointed William 
T. Barry, David R. Murray, John R. Witherspoon, and John Pope, com- 
missioners in behalf of the State, to collect information and digest a plan 
of common-school education suited to the condition of the State. That 
report was made November 30, 1822. It is justly regarded by Dr. Richard 
H. Collins as one of the great State papers of Kentucky. It discloses 
upon its face a remarkable indifference to the importance of the subject 
existing throughout the State. Though letters were addressed to intelligent 



692 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




V/lLL'if'i T P'DDv, 



citizens in every part of the State^ 
asking detailed information in re- 
gard to the condition, management, 
and expense of their schools, these 
letters were generally totally disre- 
garded. The report, however, is es- 
pecially very valuable for the letters 
it called forth from Thomas Jeffer- 
son, James Madison, John Adams, 
and Robert Y. Hayne. These let- 
ters should be read by every citizen 
of our State, who values the perma- 
nency of our free institutions, 

A splendid system of common 
and free schools was recommended 



in this report. It was almost universally approved, but no steps were taken 
to put the project into operation. Throughout the administration of Gov- 
ernor Desha, he made repeated entreaties to the Legislature to put the sys- 
tem into effect, but without success. 

In fact, there were many difficulties as yet attending the adoption of 
common schools by the people of Kentucky. The peculiar situation of the 
State, deriving much the larger part of its population from Virginia, where 
the efforts upon this subject had been signally unsuccessful, the habits and 
feeling of the people, the want of popular interest in the matter, were seri* 
ous obstacles to the immediate success of the system. Not a few of our 
statesmen were opposed to free schools upon principle. The cause of this 
opposition to them was stated by Benjamin Hardin in a speech upon educa- 
tion before the Kentucky Constitutional Convention. His language was as 
follows : 

"I have no opinion of free schools, anyhow — none in the world. They _ , 
are generally under the management of a miserable set of humbug teachers* I 
at best. The very first teacher that a child has, when he starts with his a, 
b, c, or is learning to spell 'bla' or ' baker' or 'absolute,' should be a first-rate 
scholar. He should know exactly how to spell and pronounce the English 
language, and should understand the art of composition and the construc- 
tion of sentences. In the language of Dean Swift, he should have ' proper 
words, and they should be put in proper places.' The worst taught child in ■ 1 
the world is he who is taught by a miserable country schoolmaster ; and 
I will appeal to the experience of every man here, who ever went to those 
schools, to say how hard it is to get clear of the habits of incorrect reading ' 
and pronouncing they have contracted at these country schools. For my- 
self, I will say it cost me nearly as much labor as the study of the legal 
profession itself to get clear of the miserable mode of pronouncing con- 
tracted before I went to a collegiate school, at the age of seventeen — your 



SPEECH OF BEN HARDIN. 693 

* would ' and ' could ' and ' should,' and all that. I knew a man in Gray- 
son who was to prove a settlement between two litigants, in a case where a 
small amount, some thirty, forty or fifty dollars, was involved. He gave in his 
testimony, and every now and then he would throw in a word of four, five 
or six syllables, utterly inappropriate to the sense ; like putting a magnifi- 
cent, quilted saddle and splendid bridle, with plated bit and curb, upon a 
miserable, broken-down pony, or an ox ; there was just about as much pro- 
priety in his application of these words, and I saw at once he was a country 
school-master. He had proved the making of the settlement, and, said I, 
'\\'hen did it take place?' 'On the 39th of October,' said he. 'Oh, the 
39th of October, you say?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Are you not mistaken? Was it 
not the 29th?' 'No, sir. I know the use of words as well as you do, Mr. 
Hardin, and say it was the 39th.' I then asked him how many days there 
were in October. He said he did not exactly recollect, but somewhere be- 
tween forty and fifty. 'How many months are there in the year?' 'Oh, 
there you are somewhat ahead of me, but I know there are over ten and 
under fifteen.' 'You are a school-master?' 'Yes,' said he, placing his 
hands on his hips, and looking very self-important, ' thank God, that is my 
vocation, and I am making an application for a free school up here, and I 
-want you to help me, if you will.' 'Sir,' said I, 'I will do it with all my 
heart, for you come exactly up to my notion of a free-school teacher.'" 
Such was the argument of Mr. Hardin. 

Ben Hardin, famed as one of Kentucky's great- 
est lawyers, was a native of Pennsylvania. He was 
■educated at Springfield, Bardstown, and Hartford, 
Kentucky ; studied law with Martin D. Hardin and 
Felix Grundy, and was qualified for the practice in ,^, 
1806. He settled in Bardstown in 1808, M'here lie '^^ 
kept his office until his death, in September, 185; '' 
and where he ranked among the ablest of the g'^'^^K 
axy of great lawyers, who made that bar famuu-^ 
in his day. His talents, industry, and impress! 
influence brought him an extensive and lucrative! 
practice, yet he was called by his constituents toj 
serve them four terms as representative and oncel 
as State senator, and for ten years in Congress, atj 
intervals, from 181 5 to 1837. He was singularly! 
and mercilessly sarcastic in speech and discussion, -S 
with an aptness and clearness in presenting his case, 
and intensely and aggressively combative, qualities HON, BEN HARDIN. 

■which made him an opponent ever formidable and to be feared. Borrowing from his 
style and force in Congress, John Randolph styled him "T/ie Kitchen Knife,'''' rough 
and ready for every encounter. Appointed secretary of state under Governor Owsley 
in 1844, an embittered controversy grew up between the two, and he finally resigned 
in 1847. His last public service was as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 
1849-50, in which his speeches and influence were of a very marked character. 




694 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Legislative action on the part of the State was delayed until 1828. The 
necessity of the adoption of some general plan of education then began to 
arrest popular attention in many parts of the State. Dr. John C. Young, 
president of Centre College, well said ' ' that the speedy adoption of a sys- 
tem of general education was the only thing which could secure to Kentucky 
the rank which she held in the Confederacy." He called attention to the 
fact that "the qualities which commanded admiration for the State in her 
early days would not secure to her honor in later years ; that she was no 
longer a frontier State, and could no more find renown in fields of blood, 
but it must be sought in the wider fields of literature and science." 

Many of our sister States had already advanced so far in the matter that 
Kentucky could not afford to hold back. Virginia had appropriated more 
than one million dollars for education, forty-five thousand dollars of which 
went to common schools. Kentucky had done nothing but cause reports to 
be made to the people to show how desirable primary schools would be. 
For years past, since the close of the war of 181 2, the State had been har- 
assed by angry controversies. While engaged in these unprofitable and 
wasteful party struggles, the "literary fund" had been encroached upon and 
greatly reduced. 

Educational meetings were now held in Frankfort, Lexington, and other 
prominent points throughout the State. The leading spirits in this popular 
movement were Rev. Benjamin O. Peers, James Guthrie, Charles S. More- 
head, John C, Young, and others. The sentiment in the city of Louisville 
had become comparatively strong. The charter granted to the city on the 
13th of February, 1828, gave authority to establish one or more free schools 
in every ward of the city. This was a step in advance of the State on the 
free-school question. As we learn from Colonel Durrett's sketches, on the 
24th of April, 1829, the Council adopted an ordinance establishing a free 
school. The school was opened in August, 1829. It was free to all who 
chose to attend it. Dr. Mann Butler acted as principal and Edward Baker 
as assistant. The third historian of Kentucky thus became the head of the 
first free school in the State. 

With this first dawn of free schools, a great calamity occurred at Lexing- 
ton to the cause of higher education. In 1829, the building of Transylvania 
University was burned to the ground, involving in its destruction the greater 
portion of a costly library and much of the philosophical apparatus. A re- 
port from a joint committee from both houses of the Legislature, appointed 
at this time to examine into the condition of Transylvania, showed that the 
State of Kentucky from its foundation as a Commonwealth had then donated 
altogether to the University about twenty thousand dollars. The State aid 
extended to it, instead of being extravagant, had been moderate, compared 
with the liberal endowments made by other States to their colleges and uni- 
versities. New York had then given to her colleges and academies the sum 
of $1,265,579. Virginia had given to her university at Charlottesville about 



t 



I 



PR(3PORTION OF ILLITERATES. 



695 



four hundred thousand dollars, besides an annual endowment of fifteen 
thousand dollars. Kentucky was still far in the rear with her donations 
both to collegiate and primary education. Our State university had seen its 
best days and was already upon the decline. An effort made about this 
time to revive the university and place it at the head of our system of rising 
common schools failed to meet the approval of the Legislature. 

A close examination into the educational condition of Kentucky made 
by friendly eyes showed that out of eleven or twelve hundred primary 
schools in the State in 1830, there were 31,834 children in schools and 139,- 
142 out of schools. One large county in the State, whose children num- 
bered eight hundred and ninety-three, did not have a school in its limits or 
a single child at school, while other large tiers of counties had their children 
at school in proportions ranging from ten to three hundred, from ten to one 
hundred and eighty, from ten to one hundred and forty, from ten to one hun- 
dred and thirty, from ten to one hundred and forty. Even the most favored 
county in the State in 1830 had its children at school in proportion of ten to 
twenty-three. The number of people in New York who could then read and 
write, as compared with the whole population, was one to three, while in 
Kentucky it was one to twenty-one. Our State was behind three-fourths of 
the monarchical countries of Europe in the matter of education. Only 
Portugal, Russia, Poland, and France were behind us. The masses of our 
people as yet had manifested no interest in the educational legislation of the 
State. Members of the Legislature, when reproached for the slowness of 
their movements upon this great subject, always responded that the people 
took no interest whatever in the matter. 

In this state of the case, the pulpit, the bar, the press, the legislator, and 
the teacher were all invoked to lend a helping hand. In active and efficient 
means to promote the cause at this period, none worked more effectively 
than did the Rev. Benjamin O. Peers, whose great services in the cause 
justly entitled him to be termed the founder of our system of common 
schools. The difficult task of introducing common schools into the State 
might well have appalled the strongest friends of the cause. How these 
difficulties were overcome will be stated hereafter. 

In 1829, Kentucky was getting ready for the introduction of a general 
common-school system. In that year, the Legislature requested Benjamin O. 
Peers, subsequently the president of Transylvania University, to communicate 
to the General Assembly any information he might possess upon the subject 
of common schools, which might aid in the adoption of a system for Ken- 
tucky. This request was made because it was known that Mr. Peers had 
just traveled over New England, and other parts of the United States, where 
popular education had been made a subject of legislation. He had gone 
with a special view to study the educational systems of those States. 

The report of Mr. Peers was made in 1830. It was thorough and able. 
It abounded in general observations as to the practical lessons, both of ad- 



696 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



vice and admonition, taught by the experience of New York, Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, and other States. The most important inferences which he 
drew from the experience of those States were : 

First — That the united experience of New York and Connecticut strongly 
dissuaded from the attempt to create a large State educational fund, as the 
basis of our system of common schools. 

Second — That nothing could be accomplished by our State legislation 
upon education, unless popular sentiment was fully alive to the importance 
of the subject. 

Third — That local interest and neighborhood effort should be relied on 
as much as possible, in procuring aid, expending funds, and superintending 
the interests of schools. 

Fourth— That the division of our counties into school districts was neces- 
sary to the success of a school system in Kentucky. 

Some of these conclusions had already been verified by the local expe- 
rience of our State. The wreck of our splendid system of county seminaries 
was largely due to the apathy of the people upon the subject of popular 
education. Through like indifference and inattention on the part of the 
people, our magnificent landed endowments had been made a prey to 
the negligence of trustees, and the arts of land speculators. The early 
academies, in regard to which Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, had spoken 
so hopefully in 1822, were now mostly in a dilapidated state and fast going 
to ruin. Their funds had been squandered, and but a few were exerting 
any influence in the cause of education. Through like indifference, Transyl- 
vania University, our only State university, was soon after compelled to 
surrender its interests to the keeping of a religious denomination. 

The doctrines taught in the report of Mr. Peers met with a favorable re- 
ception from the Legislature. They became the underlying principles of 
the common school law of Kentucky in 1838. Though that law was not 
passed until eight years later than the report of Mr. Peers, the act still finds 
its best exposition and defense in his report. Even the great educational 
report made by William T. Barry and others, in 1822, has not left such an 
impression upon the present common-school laws of Kentucky. 

At the time the report of Mr. Peers was made, the State possessed no 
sufficient fund to sustain a system of common schools. It was felt, how- 
ever, that a longer delay in adopting a diffusive plan of education in Ken- 
tucky would be dangerous. During the same month of January, 1830, 
when the report was made, a law was proposed establishing a uniform sys- 
tem of education for the State. This law was not based on any general 
State educational fund. It adopted the principal features of the Massachu- 
setts school system, which was that of district taxation entirely. It gave 
the County Courts the power to divide the counties into suitable educational 
districts, and gave to these districts power to levy taxes by popular vote to 
sustain the schools. It left everything to the people of the school districts. 



PASSAGE OF THE MOREHEAD BILL. 



697 



This bill was ably advocated by C. S. Morehead, and for convenience I 
shall designate it as the Morehead common-school bill. When this bill 
came up for discussion, Mr. John P. McClary, of Louisville, proposed an 
amendment to the effect that the schools established by it should be on the 
monitorial plan. This had been the plan adopted in Louisville. It was 
supposed to be especially recommended by its economy. The school in 
Louisville, run upon this plan, then had three hundred pupils, and it was 
believed the number would shortly go to one thousand. The salary of the 
two teachers employed in the Louisville school did not amount to more 
than one thousand dollars per annum ; and it was believed by many that one 
thousand pupils could as easily be taught as three hundred. The monitorial 
system was founded on the plan of mutual instruction. The more advanced 
pupils taught the less advanced, and the master superintended the whole. 
By this plan there would be a great saving in the matter of salaries to teach- 
ers. But the Louisville amendment was not accepted. 

Mr. Richard Hawes, of Clark county, strongly opposed the Morehead 
school bill. He said, as to the poor counties, the scheme would be a splen- 
did bauble; that there were fifteen or twenty counties where the heads of 
families do not average one to the square mile ; that the idea of free schools 
among them would be wholly illusory; the districts would have to be ten 
miles square, and the children would require a guard to keep off the bears 
and wolves. He objected also because the Morehead bill proposed to give 
the power to levy taxes on Tom, Dick, and Harry, when they might have 
no property to be affected by the tax. The law passed, but it was a dead 
letter on the statute book. So far as we are aware, not a school district 
was organized and reported under it. There seems to have been no suf- 
ficient public sentiment in favor of education to infuse life into the law. 
The passage of the act was followed by a series of educational meetings in 
different towns and counties to arouse popular interest in the subject. These 
gatherings were capped by a great educational State convention, held at 
Lexington, in November, 1833, where the conditions and wants of the 
State, both as to primary and collegiate education, were thoroughly can- 
vassed and discussed by friends of the cause. An able address, drafted by 
Mr. Peers, was made to the people of Kentucky, setting forth the condition 
of the State in the matter of illiteracy. No practical results were as yet 
reached from all these efforts. 

In 1836, the United States Congress recognized the justice of the positions 
taken by Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Maryland in 182 1, as to the propri- 
ety of distributing the proceeds of the public land among the States. The 
General Government then distributed a large sum of money derived from the 
sale of the public lands, of which Kentucky received $1,433, 177. This fund 
was not appropriated by Congress to any particular purpose, but it was left for 
the State to decide as to what disposition should be made of it. There was 
then a strong desire on the part of some members of the Legislature to give 



69^ HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

it to purposes of internal improvements. Others were disposed to invest it 
in bank stocks. Finally, a compromise was reached in the act of February, 
1837, by which eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars were set apart as a 
school fund, forever dedicated "to founding and sustaining a general system of 
public instruction." This was the origin, in part, of our present school fund. 

In order to make this fund productive, it was invested in bank stocks- 
and bonds of the State of Kentucky. Unfortunately, that part of the fund 
which was invested in bonds was used to purchase internal-improvement 
bonds issued by Kentucky, and the interests of the common-school system 
were sometimes sacrificed to those of the internal-improvement system. The 
idea was advanced that the cause of education and the cause of internal 
improvement might be made to aid each other ; that the principal of the 
common-school fund might be used for the purposes of internal improvement 
and the interest on the school debt might be paid from the dividends to- 
accrue upon the stock owned by the State in its works of internal improve- 
ment. The plan worked badly, as the dividends did not turn out as favor- 
ably as was then supposed. This transaction afterward had many serious 
consequences. 

On the i6th of February, 1838, the law was passed "to establish a sys- 
tem of common schools in Kentucky." This act set apart the interest on 
the eight hundred and fifty thousand dollar school fund, dedicated it to 
school purposes, and established in detail a common-school system. The 
law was drafted by Judge WilHam F. Bullock, of Louisville. It was ably 
advocated by him in a strong speech explaining all its provisions. The law 
thus drafted contained many of the great outlines of our present common- 
school law, but it differed in some essential features from the subsequent law 
of 1845, ^I'^d ^^so from the common-school law as made by the Revised 
Statutes of 1852. 

The object of the law of 1838 was not to establish free schools, but to 
create common schools, in which the children of the rich and poor might 
associate on terms of equality. Neither did it propose to educate the chil- 
dren of the State at public expense; but the small bonus given by the State 
was intended to act as an incentive to the people in the different school dis- 
tricts to impose a sufficient voluntary local tax upon themselves to educate 
the children of their own districts. This idea was borrowed from the New 
York system, and it was a part of the plan proposed in the report of the 
Rev. Benjamin O. Peers. It was then believed that the people of Kentucky 
were sufficiently anxious to secure to their children the blessings of good 
education to make them furnish liberally the means for that purpose. The 
law of 1838 made it a condition of receiving State aid on part of any school 
district that the district should regularly organize, procure a school-house at 
its own expense, and levy a local tax sufficient, when supplemented by the 
fund received from the State, to meet the expenses of maintaining a school 
in the district. 



THE SYSTEM PARTIALLY ESTABLISHED. 699 

At the time of the passage of the common-school law of 1838, James 
Clark was governor of the State. The Rev. Joseph J. Bullock was appointed 
first superintendent of public instruction. When the law was passed the 
finances of the State were deemed ample and sufficient, public confidence 
was firm and unshaken; but the next year a revolution took place in the 
monetary affairs of the State and commercial world. The terrible financial 
storms of 1839-40-41-42 soon followed, in which the bonds of Kentucky 
sank to a depreciated value, while some of our sister States sought relief in 
repudiation. 

In 1840, the school funds of the State were seized upon and applied to 
the liquidation of the internal-improvement debt. Though the children of 
the State were the most sacred of her possessions and demanded her great- 
est solicitude, the roads, creeks, and rivers of the Commonwealth were im- 
proved at the expense of the minds of her children. 

The greatest difficulty in introducing the common-school system at first 
was found to be in the indifference of the people and the neglect of county 
school officers to discharge their duties under the law. The first State 
superintendents, Joseph J. Bullock and Hubbard H. Kavanaugh, spent their 
official terms in trying to arouse a sound public sentiment in favor of com- 
mon schools. This was attempted by means of public addresses made in 
different parts of the State. The blessings of education, the evils of illiter- 
acy, the teachings of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Washington, Jefferson, Mad- 
ison, Adams, and others were urged almost in vain, without producing any 
general adoption of common schools. It was found that public prejudices 
and misunderstandings as to the purposes, objects, and practical operations 
of the law were exceedingly great. The law had not reached the third year 
of its existence when a proposition was made in the Legislature to abolish 
the office of superintendent of public instruction. The effort had a formid- 
able support, and was only defeated by the vigilant efforts of Judge William 
F. Bullock and other friends of the cause. 

In 1840, the school system was but partially established in a few scatter- 
ing districts in the State. The people of Woodford county had adopted it 
in seven districts, and Franklin followed close in the wake of Woodford. 
The local taxation voted in the different adopting districts varied from ten 
to thirty cents on the one hundred dollars' worth of property. To the town 
of Versailles belongs the honor of having organized the first common school 
in the State. To the county of Wayne belongs the honor of having been 
the first county in the State to adopt the system entire, according to the 
superintendent's report of that day. 

An event in the progress of the system was the apportionment of the 
small school fund among the adopting districts in 1840. Until then the 
system was not at a working level. Scarcely had the superintendent. Bishop 
Smith, finished his report in that year, when Governor Letcher made the 
startling announcement in his message that no preparation had been made 



yOO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

by the State to pay the drafts for common-school purposes soon to fall due. 
This announcement was almost a death-blow to the system. 

In order to impart life to the schools, Bishop Smith, then superintendent, 
had called to his assistance the aid of the Methodist Conference, the United 
Baptist Association, and the Kentucky Presbyterian Synod. Every element 
of influence had been invoked to produce the feeble results already achieved. 
All was thrown into confusion by the action of the State Government failing 
to meet the debt due the schools. 

In 1843, notwithstanding the interest due upon the school fund had been 
sacredly pledged for school purposes, the arrears of interest due from the 
State to the Board of Education amounted to $116,375. The entire prin- 
cipal of the school fund received from the General Government had been 
spent in making roads to the "Sounding Gap," or in improving the navi- 
gation of "Panther's creek," "Mayfield's creek," "Goose Creek," "Trou- 
blesome creek," and similar streams. The State was still behind on its debt 
to the Board of Education, and its inability to meet the drafts for that pur- 
pose had produced discouragement among the friends of the system. The 
operation of this influence was shown in the correspondence with the edu- 
cational department at Frankfort. In some places schools had been con- 
tinued five years, and received nothing from the State. Some of the county 
school commissioners had gone so far as to borrow money from the banks 
on individual credit, expecting to receive their proportion of the money in 
due time. 

The reason assigned for not paying the interest on the bonds given by 
the State to the Board of Education was, that as these bonds were debts due 
from the State to itself, it was not deemed expedient to borrow the money 
to pay the interest upon them. Hard times and an empty treasury seemed 
to be united in an effort to starve a common-school system to death. Su- 
perintendents Smith, Brush, Dillard, all protested against this wrong, but in 
vain. 

Meantime, loud complaints were made by the people against that part 
of the school law of 1838, allowing the districts to impose local taxation by 
popular vote. The complaint made was that this method of raising money 
necessarily led to inequality of taxation. It was asserted that rates imposed 
thus fell heaviest on the poor and lightest upon the rich districts. 

Many other objections were also made. Early in February, 1843, Mr. 
George R. McKee reported a bill in the Legislature to repeal the common- 
school system. This effort to overthrow the common-school law was based 
upon the idea that the operation of the law was such that the school fund 
would be entirely absorbed by the cities and a few of the leading towns of 
the State, while it was contended that the system could not be reduced to 
practice in such extreme counties as Harlan, Perry, Letcher, and others. 

This effort to repeal failed, but in the following November the law of 
1838 was so changed that no district tax could be levied unless upon a vote 



CHANGES IN THE SCHOOL LAW. 70I 

of two-thirds of the people of the district, and that part of the law author- 
izing the appointment of a district collector was repealed. It was then a 
matter of doubt whether any district tax at all could be imposed for common- 
school purposes. The important and effective right of local taxation, which 
had been the stronghold of the Bullock school law of 1838, was thus speed- 
ily abandoned in Kentucky, almost without a fair test of its merits. That 
part of the Bullock law had already met with a like disastrous fate in the cold 
reception given by the people to the Morehead school law of 1830. 

The severest blow was yet to come. On the 5th of August, 1845, by 
virtue of an act of the Legislature passed January loth, previous, the Board 
of Education surrendered to the governor the State bonds, six in number, 
amounting to $917,500, and they were canceled, by burning, in the pres- 
ence of William Owsley, Thomas S. Page, and James Davidson. No satisfac- 
tory reason was ever assigned for this act. The object of the Legislature in 
burning them is thus explained by Lynn Boyd: "The bonds were in loose 
pieces of paper, and the Legislature, for the better protection of the debt 
due to the Board of Education, caused duplicates of the bonds to be re- 
corded in the books of the secretary of state and second auditor, to have the 
same force and effect, and bear the same rate of interest, as the original 
bonds, and then, lest the originals might get into wrong hands, the Legis- 
lature caused the bonds to be burned." 

Judge George Robertson, commenting upon the act, said "that in burn- 
ing the scrip, Kentucky was guilty of no act of robbery or injustice, but 
acted with commendable prudence for preventing the sale and perversion 
of the bonds." Charles A. Wickliffe, speaking of the burning, says "the 
Legislature, with a view of reducing on paper the State debt, ordered the 
bonds to be canceled, and thus was blotted out the school fund." 

Cassius M. Clay, the leader of the emancipation party in the State, de- 
clared that it was "a systematic effort on the part of the slave-holders to 
prevent the people from education, as being, in the language of George 
McDufifie, incompatible with the institution of slavery." 

Notwithstanding the burning, the system was still administered by able 
superintendents, but the small pittances allowed by the Legislature for edu- 
cation had more the appearance of charities, than legislative provisions 
made by a great Commonwealth to meet the intellectual wants of one hun- 
dred and seventy thousand children. Instead of imparting life and vigor 
to the system, the niggardly sums given tended to imperil the cause of 
popular education. The people were becoming impressed with the belief 
that the Legislature did not intend doing anything worthy of the character 
of the State. 

In 1845, the Bullock common-school law was thoroughly overhauled, and 
many important changes made in its essential features. So many objections 
had been made to district taxation, that the plan of raising money by pri- 
vate subscription was adopted as a substitute for the Bullock plan. The 



7o2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

most vital feature of the law of 1838 was thus abandoned. As will be 
shown hereafter, it was not until March 2, 1865, that the plan of raising 
money by district taxation again reappears in the Kentucky school system. 
The result of all this hostile action on the part of the Legislature, and of 
these serious changes in the law, was greatly to weaken the confidence of 
the people in the stability and permanency of our common schools. 

Other States were making great progress in the cause of education, while 
Kentucky was falling behind. Even old Virginia was beginning to shake 
off her sloth, and behold with shame and confusion sixty thousand of her 
white population unable to read and write. The young States of Ohio and 
Michigan, so liberally aided by the United States Government in the estab- 
lishment of both their schools and colleges, were making rapid strides to the 
front. 

The administrations of Governors Clark, Letcher, and Owsley, had 
come and gone in Kentucky, with no substantial practical results from our 
common-school system. The entire outcome of ten years' legislation and 
flattering talk upon the subject of education in Kentucky was, that we only 
had a law upon the statute books. It had not taken root in the affections 
and life of the people. The system had a precarious existence, and fears 
were entertained of the repeal of the law. 

It is a noteworthy fact, that while common schools were at such a low 
ebb in Kentucky, eight hundred of our young men were in attendance upon 
colleges within the State, and about one hundred receiving collegiate educa- 
tion out of the State. Transylvania University, Centre College, Georgetown 
College, Augusta College, St. Mary's College, and Bacon College, were all 
well-manned and crowded with students. There were pupils in academies 
and grammar schools to the number of four thousand nine hundred and six; 
while, at the same time, there were over two hundred thousand children of 
the State not in attendance at school. 

It is difficult to say why collegiate and academical education for the few 
should so flourish, when common schools for the many should so languish. 
It was accounted for in the Northern States by assuming that the institution 
of slavery created a spirit of pride which made the masters of many slaves 
unwilling to place their children on a level with those of the poor, and sub- 
mit to the neighborhood regulations requisite to success for the common 
schools. So far as Kentucky was concerned, this idea was repudiated by 
all our superintendents, except Dr. Dillard, who vaguely said in one of his 
reports, that this tendency of the people of Kentucky to give collegiate 
education to their children while so many of the poor were uninstructed, 
was not because a majority of the wealthy and independent citizens were 
opposed to education, but because they needed more a sense of equality 
and less of distinction and exclusiveness. 

In 1847, I^r. Robert J. Breckinridge was appointed superintendent of 
public instruction. The system soon received the vitalizing touch ofr his 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1 849. 703 

genius. Shortly afterward Governor Crittenden announced that the common 
schools had recently made great progress throughout the State. By act of 
the 29th of February, 1848, the governor was directed to issue a new bond 
for arrears of interest due the board of education. A bond was accord- 
ingly issued for $368,768.42, payable at the pleasure of the Legislature. 
Soon afterward a vote was carried before the people, giving the school fund 
the benefit of an additional tax of two cents on the hundred dollars' worth 
of property. The unwillingness to impose taxation, arising from a fear of 
losing popularity on part of the law-makers, was thus skillfully met. This 
has been the uniform practice since, when politicians are unwilling to lose 
their popularity by levying a tax for education. The next duty to which 
the new superintendent devoted himself was the settlement of the principle 
that the State should no longer use the school fund for the ordinary expenses 
of the government. This question was settled favorably for the cause of 
education. The superintendent then directed his attention to the retraction 
of the policy of February 10, 1845, by which the State bonds were ordered 
to be burned, and to the re-establishing of the school fund upon a perma- 
nent and effective basis. These great results were successfully achieved. 
The school fund was thus virtually rescued from destruction by the superin- 
tendent. 

Meanwhile, the constitutional convention of 1849 ^'''^d met, and a change 
in the organic law of Kentucky was under consideration. The burning of 
the school bonds in 1845, the failure to meet the interest on the school debt, 
the appropriation of the money due to education to internal improvements, 
had become a matter of the deepest concern to the friends of education. 
The experience of eleven years had demonstrated the necessity of securing 
the school fund against the rapacious spirit of the Legislature, which had not 
hesitated to lay violent hands upon it whenever the emergency seemed to 
require. A clause was inserted in the new constitution directing that the 
capital of the common-school fund should be held inviolate for the purpose 
of sustaining a system of common schools. The same clause directed that the 
income of the school fund should be appropriated in aid of common schools, 
but for no other purpose. The Legislature was thus deprived of all power 
to apply the money coming to the Board of education either to internal im- 
provements Dr to defray the ordinary expenses of government. 

This provision of the Constitution was strongly resisted in the convention 
by Benjamin Hardin and Willis B. Machen. It was attempted to divert the 
convention from the passage of this important article concerning education 
by argument, fun, and the relation of ludicrous anecdotes. The leaders in 
the convention in favor of the educational clause were John D. Taylor, 
Larkin J. Procter, Ira Root, Thomas J. Hood, William K. Bowling, Charles 
A. Wickliffe, and Thomas J. Lisle. To these men the people of Kentucky 
owe the consecration of the school fund to purposes of education, as shown 
by the records of the debates in the convention. 



704 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



A question of the greatest importance was still unsettled, as to whether 
the common-school fund should be considered a part of the State debt, pay- 
able out of the sinking fund. Governor Helm had refused to treat the in- 
terest as so payable. His reasons for so doing were : 

First — That by section i, article XI., of the Constitution, it was provided 
that the interest upon the school fund should be paid by taxation, and not 
out of the sinking fund. 

Second — That this was the true construction of the Constitution as inter- 
preted by the men who framed it. 

The grounds in support of his objections were well set forth in two able 
messages to the Legislature. This position of the governor was endorsed 
by like opinions from George Robertson, James Guthrie, John W. Steven- 
son, Elijah Hise, and perhaps others. The opposite opinion was maintained 
by Dr. Breckinridge in a spirited communication to the Legislature. In 
March, 1850, an act was passed declaring the sinking fund was liable for the 
principal and interest of the common-school debt, and directing the interest 
to be paid by the commissioners of the sinking fund. The act soon after- 
ward became a law, notwithstanding a strong veto by Governor Helm. 

The provisions of this law were afterward executed by Governor Powell, 
and the gratifying announcement made to the people of Kentucky that the 
matter was finally settled, and that hereafter the interest upon the school 
debt would be paid annually by the commissioners of the sinking fund. 
The same act also declared that the principal of the school debt was paya- 
ble out of the sinking fund. The effect of the law was to pledge the entire 
internal-improvement stock of the State to the payment of the school bonds. 
This was an act of inherent justice. As a large part of the school fund had 
bee» applied to the improvement of our roads and rivers, it was right to 
appropriate their income to pay the interest on the school fund, and to pledge 
the stock in same for the payment of the principal at maturity. 

In 1852, the statutory law of the State was thoroughly revised. Some 
great changes were then made in the school system of Kentucky. These 
statutes made our common schools free schools. Prior to this, our schools 
had been common schools, in opposition to private and select schools, but 
not in opposition to pay schools. This change in the system was strongly 
opposed by Dr. Breckinridge. He urged that the change would overthrow 
the State system of common schools. 

Another important alteration made by the revised statutes was that 
hereafter the books to be used in the schools were not to be selected by the 
parents of the children, but by the State Board of Education. This new 
feature was borrowed from the New England and New York systems. It 
was bitterly opposed by Dr. Breckinridge, but has since become the settled 
policy of the State. 

The third and greatest change made by the revision of 1852 was that the 
educational fund of the State should be used exclusively for the promotion 



CLOSE OF DR. BRECKINRIDGE'S ADMINISTRATION. 705 

of elementary education. Prior to this, pecuniary aid to colleges, semi- 
naries, and higher institutions of learning had been a part of our State 
policy, but the rigid definition of a common school as made by the statutes 
of 1852 seems to exclude all aid to universities and colleges. This close 
definition of a common school was carried forward into the revision of 
March, 1865, and into the general statutes of 1873. It has been supposed 
by many that the definition of a common school as made by the statutes of 
1852 was its true meaning as required by the Constitution of 1849. This 
dedication of the school fund to a system of public instruction in elementary 
schools was believed by Guthrie, Wickliffe, Dixon, Taylor, and Clark to be 
enjoined by our present Constitution. Men equally as great, such as George 
Robertson, Dr. Breckinridge, Charles S. Morehead, and John L. Helm, 
have held that the Constitution of 1849 admitted universities and colleges to 
be an essential part of our common-school system. It is, perhaps, proper 
also to remark just here that the act of December 18, 182 1, directing Will- 
iam T. Barry and others to prepare a plan of schools of common education 
for the State, declares that "in a well-regulated system of general education 
different grades of schools ought to be established." The latter view seems 
to be more in accord with sound policy and with the proper historical view 
of the meaning of a common school as used in the Kentucky system. If the 
question was. Which is the most important, popular education or the exist- 
ence of colleges, it would hardly admit of dispute. Happily, their pros- 
perity is intimately connected, and an impulse given to one is felt by 
both. 

At the end of 1852, the administration of Dr. Breckinridge, as superin- 
tendent of public instruction, had closed. A great work had been done for 
education in Kentucky. The result is substantially summarized, as follows, 
in the superintendent's report for December, 1853: An immense fund had 
been created, organized, and secured; when destroyed by an act of frenzy, 
it had been retraced, restored, augmented by the Legislature, and made 
sacred by the Constitution. A complete system of education, in its lowest 
stage, had been established. Hundreds of school-houses had been erected, 
and a deep public interest aroused in favor of education. A large part of 
what had been accomplished was due to Dr. Breckinridge. Much also was 
due to his predecessors in office. Many statesmen had done their part. 
Many philanthropists had done theirs; the press had done its part. 

In 1853, the common-school law was in operation in every county in the 
State, but there v/ere still many gross deficiencies which time and patience 
alone could cure. Though the system was territorially in operation in every 
county in the Commonwealth, the complexion of any particular school, the 
amount of information imparted, its influence upon the community in which 
it was located, depended entirely upon the character of the teacher em- 
ployed. First-class men could not be obtained for the insufficient salary 
afforded by the State fund. 

45 



7o6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 

A law was passed, at the session of 1855-56, reorganizing Transylvania 
University, and establishing there a State normal school, as an indispensable 
aid to our common -school system. This was a new era inaugurated in the 
history of our common schools, though the establishment of such an insti- 
tution had been repeatedly urged by every State superintendent of public 
instruction, and also by many of our governors. This new experiment was 
abandoned after two years' trial, on account of the drain which it made upon 
the funds going to the common schools, and our system was left a "body 
without a head." 

Meanwhile, amid all the drawbacks to which our schools were subjected, 
there was a constant increase in the average daily attendance upon them. 
The vitality and energy of the system were not such as were needed in many 
of its practical workings. It had been administered by able superintendents. 
Their reports were full of valuable suggestions for the cause, but as yet the 
schools were imperfect, and had failed to meet the expectations and desires 
of the people of the State. 

Our statesmen were wrestling with questions of national politics, such as 
the tariff, the fugitive-slave law, the acquisition of Cuba, and the glittering 
generalities of the Whig and Democratic platforms, but few of them made 
any vigorous efforts to remove the evils of illiteracy. Thomas Jefferson, 
after having drafted a common-school law for Virginia, spent his declining 
years in fostering her State university; but Rowan, Clay, Crittenden, and 
Underwood, passed from their political labors with no suggestions as to the 
proper legislation to improve our common schools, and no legislative meas- 
ures for the advancement of the cause of collegiate education. The subjects 
of roads, banks, domestic manufactures, emancipation, the Mexican war, 
the sufferings of Greece, South America, Hungary, Know Nothingism, and a 
hundred other topics, took precedence over the crying evils under which the 
children of the people of Kentucky were laboring from the inefficiency of 
our defective educational system. Superintendents Breckinridge, Matthews, 
and Richardson, with the limited pecuniary means at their command, were 
powerless to remedy the defects of a system to some extent imbecile, from 
the lack of sufficient pecuniary support. 

1862 to 1886. — Throughout the continuance of the late civil war our 
common schools were on the decline. Voluntary contributions to education 
almost entirely ceased. In many counties, especially those bordering upon 
Tennessee and Virginia, the people were deprived of the necessaries of life. 
The school fund, securely intrenched by constitutional restriction, was left 
untouched by the legislation of the war. 

The act of 1864 requiring trustees, teachers, and school commissioners, 
to take the oath of loyalty, seriously affected the prosperity of many schools. 
Drawn in the spirit of some of the severest enactments of Henry VIII., it 
was too stringent for the people of our State. It was a remarkable specimen 
of unwise legislation, in its practical effects upon our educational interests. 



DONATION FROM CONGRESS. 



707 



From i860 to 1865, school districts in the State, to the number of seven 
hundred and twelve, had been discontinued. On the 30th of January, 1864, 
the common-school law had again been amended and seriously changed. 
The plan of sustaining the schools partly by public funds and partly by pri- 
vate contributions, as introduced by the law of 1845, was now found to be 
impracticable. Experience had shown that Dr. Dillard was right, when 
he said a great State system of education could not be rested upon volun- 
tary contributions. Much good had been accomplished by this method, 
but it was always an unreliable plan of sustaining the schools. It was a 
feeble substitute for the vigorous system of local district taxation which has 
produced such satisfactory results in many of our sister States. It was not 
a part of the original common-school law, as drafted by Judge Bullock, and 
founded on the report of Benjamin O. Peers. It was a stranger to the sys- 
tem proposed in the great state paper of Barry, in 1822. The Morehead 
school law of 1830 rested upon no such insecure foundation. 

At the close of the war, it was admitted by Dr. Stevenson, then at the 
head of our common schools, that the system was strikingly deficient in 
many respects. For the last thirty years, the progress of ideas in relation 
to popular education had been very marked in the United States, but Ken- 
tucky had profited but little by it. Dr. Stevenson declared that our system 
was still substantially what it had been a quarter of a century ago. The 
number of children was increasing, but the State pro rata was decreasing. 

In 1862, Kentucky had again been offered an additional donation from 
Congress. The State was given three hundred and thirty thousand acres 
of land, which was sold by Mr. Madison C. Johnson, as its agent, for one 
hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. The amount received was invested 
so as to yield an annual income of ninety-nine hundred dollars. The low 
price obtained for the land was a disappointment to many of the friends of 
education. Other States had been more successful in the results obtained 
from like donations, and the sale of our land at the price named occasioned 
much dissatisfaction. 

The object of this donation by Congress was the establishment and en- 
dowment of a State agricultural and mechanical college. The institution 
contemplated by the gift was located at Lexington, in 1865, as one of the 
departments of Kentucky University, but, as the agricultural college did 
not long rest in that connection, it was subsequently made a separate State 
institution. As a return for the annual endowment of ninety-nine hundred 
dollars received from the State, the Agricultural College is required to fur- 
nish free tuition to three pupils from each legislative district. It was claimed 
by Governor Blackburn, in one of his messages, that the Agricultural College 
had thus, in fact, become a part of the common-school system of the State. 
It has been aided by a small State tax levied in its behalf. This aid by 
State taxation to a college, as a part of our common-school system, is at war 
with the idea of a constitutional-school system, as interpreted by the revisers 



7o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

of 1852, but accords with the views of the system entertained by Dr. Breck- 
inridge and others, as aheady stated. 

The great loss of property occasioned by the overthrow of slavery, ac- 
companied by the increase of the number of children to be educated, had 
now produced a serious decrease in the income of the school fund. The 
system, after the close of the war, was not working as desired. Mr. Z. F. 
Smith had been elected to fill the office of State superintendent, as succes- 
sor to Dr. Daniel Stevenson. Mr. Smith attributed this lack of successful 
operation to a want of sufficient means and certain defects in the existing 
organization of the counties. He insisted that our common-school system 
needed remodeling throughout on the basis of modern reforms. He urged 
that an additional tax of fifteen cents on the one hundred dollars was neces- 
sary as the basis of a vigorous system. 

The proposition to increase the school tax from five to twenty cents on 
the one hundred dollars' worth of property was submitted to a vote of the 
people of the State, and carried by a majority of 24,677 votes. The super- 
intendent then drafted a bill embodying his ideas of the needed reforms in 
our school system ; but the Legislature rejected the enlarged plans and poli- 
cies of reform as proposed by Mr. Smith, and adopted a bill perpetuating 
many of the features of the old law, with such changes as were deemed 
proper. The law thus enacted, notwithstanding its defects, was a great im- 
provement on the old law. 

The historian. Dr. Richard H. Collins, justly says that the material results 
of the reforms introduced by the efforts of Mr. Smith were great improve- 
ments in the quality of education given, in the character of teachers obtained, 
in the number of schools taught, in the amount of school fund distributed, 
and in the average attendance upon the schools. 

Much advancement was also made under the succeeding administration 
of Dr. H. A. M. Henderson. 

The remodeling of the law to suit the wants of the State, the organiza- 
tion of teachers' institutes, and other improvements, received much attention 
under his administration. 

The difference of opinion between the head of our educational depart- 
ment and the legislative branch of our government, as illustrated in the 
case of Mr. Smith, has often been witnessed in the history of our common 
schools. One of the complaints of Dr. Breckinridge was that, after all his 
efforts for the creation and preservation of our common-school system, his 
cherished plans and ideas had been changed and materially interfered with 
by the Revised Statutes of 1852. 

With the freedom of the negro, the education of the colored people resi- 
dent in the State began to attract the attention of the people of Kentucky. 
The result of our legislative efforts in this direction is thus given by Gov- 
ernor Knott, in his message of 1884. By the act passed in 1874, the whole 
taxes, together with the fines and forfeitures collected by the State from its 



EQUALIZING THE PER CAPITA. 709 

colored people, were devoted to the education of colored children — not a 
cent collected from the colored people being required to pay the expenses 
of the State Government. From 1875 to 1882, the per capita accruing to 
each colored child amounted to from fifty to fifty-five cents. On the 6th 
of August, 1882, the voters of the State ratified an act of the Legislature 
equalizing the per capita of white and colored children. The following year 
the common per capita established was one dollar and thirty cents. A suffi- 
cient amount was taken from the white fund to equalize the two races. 

The General Statutes of 1873 niade important and valuable changes in 
our common-school law. The fundamental idea of State aid supplemented 
by district taxation, as developed in the Bullock law of 1838, is a striking 
feature of the General Statutes of 1873. This revision is justly regarded by 
Dr. Henderson as an advance upon all our previous statutes. 

The revision of 1884 is a still greater approach to the goal desired. It 
contains some admirable provisions, on which the author would be gratified 
to comment, but the space at his command forbids. 

Our system still has many defects. Some of these were pointed out in 
the report of Professor Joseph D. Pickett, our present State superintendent. 
A number of his suggestions were adopted by the Legislature of 1884. An 
able report from the Senate committee on education for that year contrib- 
uted much to important changes in the law, and to the enhancement of the 
revenue going to the educational fund. The Senate committee seemed 
opposed to any increase of State taxation for educational purposes, and so 
stated in their report. 

In his message of 1884, Governor Knott, in alluding to the educational 
condition of Kentucky, declared that we would look a long time for the 
golden age, when every child in the State would enjoy good schools at pub- 
lic expense, before it was realized at the present average of one dollar and 
forty cents per annum to the pupil, unless something was done to supple- 
ment it. He thought this could not be expected from State taxation, as he 
maintained that there was not another State in the Union which contributed 
such a large proportion of its revenues to the purposes of education. 

Whether the State bonus would at present be sufficiently supplemented 
by district taxation in many parts of the State is a matter of serious doubt. 
If reliance is to be placed upon the historical facts of our system rather 
than upon ingenious speculations, then, so far as our limited experience 
has gone, the facts are against district taxation, as a sufficient aid to bring 
up our standard of education to the mark required by the demands of the 
age. 

The history of district taxation, as a dependence for the system as it was 
developed in the laws of 1830-38 and '45, has already been given. It is 
proper now to add that the revisions of 1852 and 1864 omitted the right of 
local taxation. It was thus dropped from the Kentucky system for the 
period of twenty years. It was revived on a small scale in 1865. The 



7IO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

odious rate-bill system appeared somewhat later, in 1870, as a substitute for 
district taxation. It was not until the rate feature fell, under the severe 
blows of Mr. Z. F. Smith, that local district taxation, after a long sleep, 
again reappeared in the General Statutes of 1873. 

To summarize the whole matter in a few words, district taxation failed 
in 1830; reappeared in 1838; was rejected in the revisions of 1845-52 and 
'64; was restored on a small scale in 1865 ; disappeared again in 187 1, with 
the rate feature as a substitute; reappeared in 1873; again reappears in 
1884, under the more practical form of county taxation, first suggested by 
Mr. Smith, as a necessary substitute for district taxation. 

According to the report of Professor J. D. Pickett, the amount raised in 
Kentucky by district taxation and voluntary subscription is exceedingly 
small. The per capita from this source, in 1880, was seventy-nine cents. 
Nearly two-thirds of this amount were gathered in cities and towns, where 
it is rhore than probable that its payment is due to the operations of a cor- 
porate government, rather than to voluntary submission to taxation by a 
district vote of the people. 

After forty years' trial of our system, with all the aid we have been able 
to get from district taxation, the practical result of the whole matter is that 
Kentucky still stands low on the list of illiteracy, as shown by the educa- 
tional reports of the United States. In this respect she presents an example 
of a State not to be imitated, rather than one to be followed. As shown by 
the first message of Governor Knott, she furnishes to the masses of her 
children an education worth only one dollar and forty cents per annum, 
while most of our sister States furnish their children with an education of 
much greater value. Can the poor children of our State, laboring under 
these disadvantages, compete successfully with the children of those States, 
where the education given is worth so much more than that obtained in 
Kentucky ? Can the poor children of the State, with an education only 
worth one dollar and forty cents per annum, be expected to compete suc- 
cessfully with the children of our wealthy citizens who sometimes give as 
much as two hundred or three hundred dollars per annum for the education 
of their sons ? These are questions which Kentucky statesmanship has yet to 
meet and answer, in a manner more satisfactory than has hitherto been done. 

When the worst is reached. State conventions have sometimes been the 
last hope and refuge for improvement in our schools. Two great popular 
conventions, one at Lexington and another at Frankfort, introduced the 
common-school system into Kentucky. Another convention of the scholars 
and educators of the State, assembled at the call of Dr. Breckinridge,* in 
1852, entered their solemn protest against some of the principles announced 
in the revision of 1852. 

A large popular convention, called together by Judge Wm. M. Beck- 
ner, in 1884, gave a strong impulse to the cause of education in Kentucky. 
It not only aroused public sentiment upon the subject, but called attention 



AN INTER-STATE CONVENTION. 



711 




iLLIAWl f/l&KljHiN 



William Morgan Beckner, of Win- 
chester, was born in Nicholas county, June 
19, 1841, of Scotch-Irish and English parents, 
who early removed from Virginia. His ed- 
ucation was in the country schools of Bath 
and Fleming counties, and at Maysville Sem- 
inary. He spent some years in teaching, and 
read law under Judge E. C. Phister. He 
located, in 1865, at W^inchester, where he 
has pursued the calling of the law and edit- 
ing the Clark County Democrat almost con- 
stantly since, filling the office of countyjudge 
and several others in the meantime. In 
1880, he was appointed one of three commis- 
sioners, by Governor Blackburn, to locate 
the site for a branch penitentiary, and to re- 
port a plan of building and system of gov- 
ernment for the institution. The able report 
was written by Judge Beckner. In 1882, he 
was also appointed on the State Railroad 

Commission, with W. B. Machen and D, Howard Smith. He has served some years 
on the Democratic State Committee ; but it is in the work of education that Judge 
Beckner has most actively distinguished himself, especially of late years. In 1882, he 
delivered an address before the State Teachers' Association, ably pointing out the insuf- 
ficiencies of the provisions of the common schools, and urging national aid. In 1883, 
he was mainly instrumental in calling together and organizing the State convention 
at Frankfort, to consider the educational wants of the State ; and in September of the 
same year, calling the national convention at Louisville, of which he was president, in 
like interests, in which twenty-seven States were represented. Judge Beckner took 
much interest in, and advised upon, the work of redrafting the present school 
law of Kentucky, so much in advance of any preceding it. In June, 1885, he deliv- 
ered the annual address for the literary societies of Berea College, where all sexes and 
colors are admitted on an equal footing. In September after, he read a paper before 
the Social Science Convention at Saratoga, New York. He was elected and sat as a 
delegate in the late constitutional convention. 

to many important defects in the system. Some of the beneficial results of 
this movement are to be seen in the revision of 1884. 

This meeting at Frankfort resulted in a larger inter-State convention at 
Louisville, in which many matters of vital importance to education in all 
parts of the country were considered. 

An education worth only one dollar and forty cents, it is believed, will 
not satisfy the people of Kentucky. Only schools of the very lowest grade 
can be obtained for this amount. First-class schools should be furnished to 
the children of the State. The educational convention of Virginia was right 
when it said : " The public schools must be good ; they must be emphatically 
colleges for the people. If they are not good enough for the rich, they are 
not fit for the poor. If made as good as the rich desire, wealthy citizens 
will find no reason to send their children from home for education." 



712 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The early plan of collegiate education adopted by Kentucky was the 
endowment by the State of one university. It was the settled conviction 
of some of our earliest statesmen that the endowment of more than one 
college in the State would be an injury to higher education. The grounds 
of this belief are well stated by Dr. Charles Caldwell, in his discourse on 
the genius and character of Dr. Holley. His position may be briefly, but 
imperfectly, stated, as follows : 

First — To be in character and efficiency worthy of a State, a university 
must be supported by all the wealth of the Commonwealth. Divide these 
means and nothing great can be accomplished. Nothing distinguished can 
come from a dwarfish school. '' Divide and be conquered" has been the 
banner motto of the greatest soldiers of the world. 

Second — When a State is filled with a number of colleges, its scholars 
are as puny as the institutions they represent, and, to be educated, indi- 
viduals must go abroad, or educate themselves. 

Third- — To endow and maintain more than one college produces sectional 
feelings and local jealousies. A ruinous compromise of interests will be 
the result, and the entire concern will run into confusion and endin failure. 

The experiment of a well-endowed State university has never been thor- 
oughly tried in Kentucky. Transylvania University was, for a short time, 
feebly aided by the State, and even then became the admiration and pride 
of the West. While Transylvania was allowed to decline for want of suf- 
ficient pecuniary aid, other colleges sprang up in different parts of the 
State, having the advantage of local partialities, and a widely-diffused 
religious zeal in their favor. The State university was girdled on all sides 
by rival institutions. Without a sufficient support from the Commonwealth, 
it could not stand the competition of younger institutions. After a short 
and checkered career, Transylvania University was transferred to one of 
the great religious denominations of the State. The story of its rise and 
fall is fraught with many lessons of value. What benefit will be reaped 
from these lessons in the future remains to be seen. 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY. 



713 



CHAPTEE XXX. 



The Physical Geography of Kentucky, 

Position, area, and boundaries. 

Its surface. 

Within the Mississippi basin. 

Mountainous area. 

Elevations and depressions. 

Geographical and geological map. 

Professor Procter, State geologist. 

Geological explanations by colorings of 
map. 

Subterranean caverns and streams. 

Mammoth Cave. 

Two hundred miles of avenues. 

Major William J. Davis. 

Coal measures. 

Seven hundred miles of river boundaries 
and four thousand miles of river naviga- 
tion. 

Climate medium and moderate. 

Meteorological characteristics. 

Classification of soils. 

Order of succession of rocks. 

Geological formations and strata. 

Mineral resources. 

Fourteen thousand square miles of coal- 
fields. 

More than in Pennsylvania or in Eng- 
land. 

Twenty thousand square miles of iron- 
ore. 

Other minerals and stone. 
Forest vegetation of Kentucky. 
Differs with geological changes. 
Native forests yet fifteen million acres 
of fine tim]:)er. 

The '-Barrens" country. 

Products in tobacco, hemp, grain, etc. 

Grasses, fruits, and stock-raising. 

Its animals, historic and pre-historic. 

Birds and fishes. 

Archaeology. 

Mound-builders and their remains. 

Rafinesque's early catalogue. 



Progress of Medical Science and Literatun 
in Kentucky. 

Dr. Thomas Walker, first physician in 
Kentucky. 

First surgical operation. 

Dr. Ridgely's adventures and visit. 

Dr. Samuel Brown. 

First in America to vaccinate for small- 
pox, and at Lexington. 

First medical faculty of Transylvania 
University. 

Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley's renown. 

McDowell, the first ovariotomist in the 
world. 

James K. Polk and other patients. 

The galaxy of medical lights of early 
Kentucky not surpassed in any country. 

Inventions and skill of these. 

Dr. Walter Brashear, of Bardstown. 

Dr. McCreary, of Hartford, Kentucky. 

Dr. Alban Goldsmith, of Danville. 

Drs. Sutton, of Georgetown, and Bow- 
man, of Harrodsburg. 

Dr. Henry Miller. 

Dr. William Gardner, of Woodsonville. 

Others of noteworthy fame. 

Medical institutions at Louisville. 

Dr. Charles Caldwell. 

Faculty of University of Louisville. 

Kentucky School of Medicine. 

Dr. Middleton Goldsmith. 

History of Kentucky Jurisprudence. 
Its First Period : 

First Constitution and laws of England 

and Virginia. 
Contrasts then and now. 
First legislative enactments. 
Conflicting claimant laws. 
INIitigation of penalties for crimes. 
First penitentiary. 
Diflerent courts. 
Few laws of protection or relief yet. 



714 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



The Second Period : 

The second Constitution of 1 800, 
Progress in judicial and legislative re- 
form. 
Incidents of enumeration. 
'' Bob Johnson's law." 
Against duelling and deadly weapons. 
Era of banks. 

Federal and State decisions conflict. 
Commonwealth's Bank and its issues. 
Old and new courts. 
Amos Kendall's comment on new laws. 
Judge Bibb's opinion. 
Temperance legislation. 
State charities and corporations. 

The Third Period : 

Progress in education and internal im- 
provements. 

Congressional aid bills vetoed. 

State omnibus improvement bill. 

Growth of pro-slavery sentiment. 

Constitution of 1849. 

Other legislation. 

Revised statutes by Turner, Nicholas, 
and Wicklifte. 



The Fourth Period : 

Growth of corporations. 
Material progress. 
The civil war era. 
Peculiar laws of this era. 
Amendments to the United States Con- 
stitution. 
Adjustment of laws to same. 
Rights conceded to colored citizens. 
Precedents and rulings of our courts. 
Malice and moral insanity. 
Dangers from corporations. 
Obscene literature. 
Empiricism. 

Defective revenue system. 
Protective and relief statutes. 
Different periods reflect the popuiar sen- 
timent of their day. 

Editors of Kentucky. 
George D. Prentice. 
Walter N. Haldeman. 
Robert M. Kelly. 
Henry Watterson. 
Emmett G. Logan. 



1 The Physical Geography of Kentucky — Position, Area, and Boundaries. — 
The State of Kentucky lies between the parallels of latitude 36° 30' and 
39° 6' north of the equator, and between 82° 2' and 89° 40' longitude west 
from Greenwich, or 5° and 12° 38' longitude west from Washington City. 

The Ohio river forms its northern, north- 
western, and north-eastern boundary, and sepa- 
rates it from the States of Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois. A part of its north-eastern border is 
formed by the Big Sandy river, which separates 
it from West Virginia. Its south-eastern face 
is bounded by the Cumberland ranges of mount- 
ains. An arbitrary line nearly three hundred 
miles long separates it from Tennessee. The 
western boundary is formed by the Mississippi 
river, which divides it from Missouri. 

The entire perimeter of the State is twelve 
hundred and forty-two miles, of which six hun- 
dred and forty-two extend along the Ohio, one 
hundred and twenty along the Big Sandy, one 




HON. JOHN R. PROCTER. 



1 Paper by William J. Davis, Louisville,^Kentucky. 



THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY. 



715 




MAJOR W. J. DAVIS. 



hundred and thirty along the Cumberland range, three hundred measure 
the Tennessee border, and fifty lie along the Mississippi. Its greatest length 
is four hundred and eleven miles j extreme breadth one hundred and seventy- 
nine miles. Its area is about forty 
thousand square miles. Its out- 
line may be likened to that of a 
roughly-hewn stone arrow-head. 
Surface. — The whole of Ken- 
tucky lies within the Mississippi 
basin, occupying a position nearly 
central among the States that form 
its eastern slope, and within the 
special division of the valley of 
the Ohio, of which it forms the 
southern slope. With the ex- 
ception of its mountainous area, 
containing not more than four 
thousand square miles, the State is 
a gently-inclined tableland, slop- 
ing from the south-east toward 
the north-west. The Cumberland 
ranges of mountains rear their 
heads from two thousand to twen- 
ty-four hundred feet above the level of the sea, but few of the ridges reach 
more than seven hundred feet above the valley bottoms. Along the Mis- 
sissippi, the average height above the sea is about three hundred feet. 
The surface of this tilted plateau is comparatively little broken, except the 
deep-cutting rivers, whose banks are often several hundred feet high. 

The territory lying on both sides of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, 
south of Elizabethtown, has its surface marked by broad bowl-shaped depres- 
sions, or sink-holes, into which mouths of caverns frequently open. Many 
of these caves intersect one another and ramify like confluent rivers. Their 
floors are often dry, and their avenues and chambers so spacious that they 
may be explored without difficulty. Some idea of their vast extent may be 
formed when it is said that the " Mammoth Cave " is a system of galleries, 
avenues and chambers, some of them sixty feet wide and as many high, 
aggregating two hundred miles in length ; while in Edmonson county, in 
which it occurs, more than five hundred separate openings penetrate the 
earth. Adventurous parties from all parts of the world visit this wonderful 
region to explore its cavern-ways. Probably many thousand miles of these 
passages are accessible. Their magnitude impresses the minds of explorers 
with awe, while stalagmitic masses of carbonate of lime and pendent stalac- 
tites of the same mineral compound, and efflorescent ceilings of gypsum, 
reflecting from their crystalline surfaces scintillant gleams of torches, or of 
the lights of numerous lanterns, present a scene of surpassing beauty and 



7l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

sublimity. " Mammoth Cave" justly ranks as one of the greatest natural 
curiosities. 

In the eastern and south-eastern portions of the State, and lying upon 
both sides of the lower half of Green river, are situated the " coal meas- 
ures," or carboniferous limestones, which areas are cut into frequent narrow 
valleys, with steep ridges on each side. 

That part of the surface indicated as "tertiary" is more properly the 
quaternary formation. It lies wholly west of the Tennessee river, and is 
comparatively level, with low-banked rivers, which, when swollen by fresh- 
ets, overflow the adjacent country. 

Rivers. — The river boundary of Kentucky is seven hundred and thirty- 
three miles. Within its limits are more than four thousand miles of rivers, 
mostly navigable throughout the year. Chief among these is the Ohio, 
called by the early French explorers of the Mississippi valley "La Belle 
Riviere," a stately, beautiful stream, navigable nearly the year around by 
the largest steamboats, and forming a great highway for the carrying trade 
of the States through which it flows. The only natural obstacle to its free 
navigation at low water has been found in the rapids, improperly called 
"the Falls," at Louisville, but boats may pass around this impediment 
through a lock canal, mainly constructed and now operated by the Federal 
Government. The Big Sandy, a turbid stream, whose name is derived from 
the large amount of moving sand washed from the sand-rocks which com- 
pose the beds of its tributaries; the Licking, fourth in size; the Kentucky, 
second of the Kentucky streams in volume and first in length, with four 
hundred miles of front, flowing through a region of picturesque beauty and 
abounding in valuable mineral products, such as coal, iron ore, salt, fire- 
clay, and hydraulic cement ; Green river, one-third larger than the Ken- 
tucky, flowing through extensive coal-fields, rich in coals of varied quality 
and in iron-ores; the Cumberland, whose upper half and lower sixth courses 
through Kentucky, cutting through vast coal-fields and wide-spreading forest 
tracts; the Tennessee, which, coursing through South-western Kentucky, 
debouches into the majestic Ohio ; the mighty Mississippi, washing the ex- 
treme western border — all these, with their tributaries, go to form a river 
system equaled by few States and surpassed by none of like area. 

Climate. — The numerous rivers and large areas of forests render the at- 
mosphere humid, and thus moderate the winter's cold and the summer's 
heat. The mean annual temperature is about fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, 
the thermometer taking a usual range of a hundred degrees, although rarely 
marking as high as ninety-five degrees in midsummer, but the changes of 
temperature are often sudden and violent, putting the constitutions of feeble 
folk to a severe test. Notwithstanding, the adult population shows a large 
proportion of robust men and women, endowed with great physical vigor 
and health, and surpassing in size any other peoples of America or Europe. 
The prevalent winds blow from the south and south-west. Winds from the 



DESCRIPTION OF SOILS. 717 

west are usually cloud-bearing. North-west winds bring the " cold waves" 
and the bitter "blizzards" of midwinter; but tornadoes or cyclonic blasts 
have rarely invaded the domain of this State. 

Precipitation of moisture occurs with well-distributed regularity through- 
out the year, and agriculture is favored by seasonable rains and snows. The 
average annual rain-fall is about sixty inches in the Cumberland ranges and 
forty-five inches along the Ohio river. The number of days of sunshine, 
however, is relatively large. 

Epidemic diseases have never proved destructive, and, although many 
forms of acr.te diseases of malarial origin occur, only in a limited territory, 
where the elevation above the sea is less than three hundred and fifty feet, 
and where the soils are alluvial and relatively non-porous, have miasmatic 
fevers ever prevailed. The number of persons who attain to great age in 
the full enjoyment of all their faculties is remarkable. 

Soi7s. — Inasmuch as soils are primarily derived from the disintegration of 
rocks, it would seem to be not inappropriate to give here a brief description 
of rock formation and decomposition, with a sketch of the order of succession 
of these several formations and their occurrence in Kentucky. Part of a 
carefully and ably-prepared article on this subject is here transcribed : 

1" Geologists divide rocks into three classes — first, sedimentary rocks, or 
stratified limestones and sandstones; second, metamorphic rocks, whose 
originally-laminated structure has been somewhat changed by the action of 
hot water; third, igneous rocks, whose primitive structure has been totally 
transformed under the melting influences of fervid heat. 

"Of the last class, lava, trap, pumice, tufa, and other scoriaceous ma- 
terials in a molten state, ashes, cinders, etc., thrown up by local volcanic 
outbursts and afterward consolidated, are common examples. No rocks of 
igneous origin occur in Kentucky, or, indeed, are met with in the Mississippi 
valley. Although it might prove interesting to describe these and to show 
how the different energetic forms of igneous agency, by raising land areas 
and lowering ocean floors, tend to wrinkle the earth's face more and more, 
and thus enlarge the surfaces of continents and increase their elevation, 
while, on the other hand, atmospheric forces are constandy cutting down the 
continents and filling up the seas, we must pass on after making one remark: 
To whatever immediate cause volcanoes and earthquakes may be attributed, 
their action is confined within comparatively-hmited areas. Earthquakes 
produce cracks and fissures; volcanic outbursts erect single cone-shaped 
peaks. Mountain chains, sometimes ridging the earth's surface in lines 
hardly broken for ten thousand miles, like the American Cordilleras, can not 
be produced by an inner pent-up force acting outwardly, but are the effects 
of the slow, secular cooling of the earth's interior and its consequent contrac- 
tion along radial lines converging toward the center. Observe that this con- 
traction must compress surface matter horizontally, and, since a spherical 

I Major William J. Davis in Fanners' Almanac, 1883. 



73 8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

segment containing a given quantity of matter can not be squeezed into 
lesser bulk and retain its form, and because the form must change at the 
surface, we have the softer and weaker parts of the mass giving away as they 
are pushed out of place by the more rigid portions, and protruding far be- 
yond the common level. You will have no difficulty in understanding this 
when I tell you that along certain lines of sea-coast there may be segrega- 
tions of sand or mud to the depth of many thousand feet, and that an in- 
spection of geological maps will show conclusively that mountain chains 
trend parallel with the ancient coast lines of gradually-receding seas. Let us 
note further that this work is done in no indecent haste, as is that of earth- 
quakes and volcanoes, but so slowly as to be imperceptible to generation 
after generation of men living near the theater of action; in truth, many 
thousand years pass between the beginning and the end, as shown in the 
grand chain, counting its length by circumferential degrees and numbering 
its breadth by leagues. 

" If a plastic mass of mud, sand, and water stretches along the ocean 
shore for a great distace, and lies along the bottom far out from land to the 
depth of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand feet, two or three miles below the 
upper layers, the superincumbent pressure would boil and seethe the mass 
and metamorphose its laminated form as if a Titanic hand had stirred its 
depths,- and, as the mass slowly yields to the horizontal squeeze we have al- 
ready alluded to, this metamorphosed portion, rising with the rest, but re- 
maining always under it, when the whole protruding mass, evaporating and 
cooling by conduction, should have become solidified, would form the axis 
or backbone of the chain. This is true — the axial interior of every mountain 
chain is metamorphic or granitic rock. 

"We have said that the chain may be many thousand miles long and 
several hundred miles wide. It is not often a single ridge or continuous 
elevated plateau but is longitudinally divided by great valleys into ranges 
more or less parallel. The ranges also are divided into ridges by smaller 
valleys. This is the primitive form of the chain when first squeezed up, but 
after the lapse of ages, during which it is exposed to rain and wind, frost 
and sunshine, the ridges are divided transversely, and peaks and cross val- 
veys serrate the linear crests. Atmospheric waters penetrate the fissures 
and pores of the rocks, frost and sunshine break off great masses and crumble 
them into atoms, rains descending run from the crests in furrows, the rills 
trickle along these furrows, and many of them uniting deepen their beds into 
gullies, and these joining form canons, and these coming together make valleys 
through which the rivers flow onward to the sea. The powdered-rock d^^^^m, 
more or less fine, is borne along by these waters as sediment and distributed 
by them in their course. What is carried to the seas sinks, in time, to the 
bottom and is spread over it, the coarser particles settling first, then the 
finer, and so on with intermissions, so that the sediments are assorted in 
several layers of greater or less thickness. The skeletons of dead marine 



FORMATION OF ROCKS. 



719 



animals and the solid parts of sea-plants thickly bestrew the floor and are 
slowly covered by the silt. These are succeeded by other bones and shells, 
leaves and stems, which in turn are buried under the slime and sand slowly 
precipitated. Layer after layer, each entombing organic remains, thus oc- 
curs, and, solidifying and rising above the level of the waters, offers to the 
forces of the atmosphere the materials for more rock-making. All rocks 
have been formed in this way. The oldest outcropping rocks bear testimony 
that they have been formed of the materials of pre-existing rocks. 

"It is plain that, since rocks are thus derived, it will happen that strata 
and groups of strata widely separated vertically will closely resemble, be- 
cause they will often contain in similar proportions the same materials. 
Hence, if these are widely separated geographically, an examination of their 
lithological structure or a chemical analysis of their materials would discover 
ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF ROCKS, no difference in age, and would lead to 
Greatest the conclusiou that such apparently sim- 

EXPOSURE , I r J 

IN North ilar rocks were synchronouslv formed. 

America. . "^ 

The palaeontologist — he who has studied 
the buried bones of corals, worms, and 
fishes, the fossil shells of urchins, trilo- 
bites, snails, and mussels, the fibrous 
stems and veined leaves of fucoids and 
sea grasses — can alone settle this ques- 
tion of the order of occurrence of strata 

24,100 feet, and their geological times. 

"The science of geology concerns 
the history of the earth developing age 
after age, under the influence of mechan- 

56,000 feet, ical and chemical agencies, and of the 
living things that once have populated 
it. To constitute a science, knowledge 



Age. 

Psychozoic 
Age of Man 



Formation. 



an. j 



Cenozoic, or 
Recent Age. 



Mesozoic, or 
Middle Age. 



Palaeozoic, or 
Ancient Age. 



Archaean, or 
Earliest Age. 



Recent. 



Quaternary. 



Pliocene. 



Miocene. 



Cretaceous. 



Jurassic. 



Triassic. 



Permian. 



Carboniferous. 



Subcarbonifer- 
ous. 



Devonian. 



Lower Silur- 
ian, 48,000 ft. 



Huronian. 



Laurentian. 



4,000 feet. 



. 1,200 feet. 



15,250 feet. 



.52,750 feet. 



j must have been formulated and system- 

atized. Homogeneous layers of rock in any one locality would naturally be 
grouped together in strata, homogeneous strata would be joined in groups, 
groups would be comprised in formations, several formations classed together 
would make ages, and all would be placed in ascending serial order. This 
could be done with little trouble and labor were vertical sections to be seen 
many thousand feet high, but when a small outcrop takes place here and a 
meager exposure there, it is not so easy. Chemists, mineralogists, litholo- 
gists, and stratigraphists have done good work in this direction, but they have 
also heaped confusion upon this department of the science, from which the 
palaeontologists are gradually extricating it. The table above shows the order 
of occurrence in an ascending series. I omit the subdivision of groups. 
Only in the mountains that border the Mississippi valley or in insulated 
spots do the granitic rocks of the Archaean Age outcrop. These rocks are 



72,0 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

largely metalliferous. Decomposing, they make argillacious soils stiff, usu- 
ally watery, and containing no lime. The formations take their name from 
the Laurentine mountains and Lake Huron, where the rocks are best ex- 
posed. 

"Limestones and sandstones make up the formations of the Palaeozoic 
Age. 

"The Silurian formation, so named from Silures, the Latin designation 
of the inhabitants of Wales, by Sir R. Murchison, who first described these 
rocks as characteristic of Wales, is divided into lower and upper. There is 
no reason why these rocks should be associated together under one name, 
since they differ essentially in lithological character and in fossil remains. 
While good building and paving limestones occur in the lower Silurian, the 
rocks are generally soft, and crumble rapidly on exposure. Trees strike 
their roots deep into the incoherent niass and are vivified with luxuriant 
beauty. The rapidly-disintegrating rock, succumbing to atmospheric vicis- 
situdes, makes a porous soil, light as vegetable mould and rich in lime, phos- 
phates, carbonates, and silicates. These are the ' bluegrass ' lands of the 
Mississippi valley, where the finest breeds of horses and cattle are raised, 
where hemp, tobacco, and all the cereals are grown most abundantly. The 
superficies of a lower silurian region is undulating or thickly interspersed 
with high conical hills. 

"The upper silurian rocks, containing often micaceous and aluminous 
elements, are usually converted into moist clays, fruitful under cultivation, 
but not rivaling the soils of the lower silurian. The river banks in this 
formation are generally precipitous bluffs, the sides of glens are steep, but 
the upper country is a level, arable plateau. Such falls as those of Niagara 
are possible only to rivers that cut through these rocks. 

"The devonian clays, rich in lime and organic remains, offer soils su- 
perior generally to those of the upper silurian, save where they are covered 
with decomposed shale that separates this from the superincumbent carbon- 
iferous rocks. The stiff, light-colored clays derived from this shale have a 
strong body, but are deficient in lime and are soggy. If thoroughly drained 
and tilled, they will produce well, especially if, furthermore, they are ma- 
nured with land-plaster, will they yield the largest returns of clover and 
timothy hay. The surface of the devonian formation is characterized by 
low, broad-based, round-topped hills, which, unless set in deep-rooted grasses 
or carefully tilled, will be furrowed with gullies ever widening and deepen- 
ing. The term ' Devonian ' is derived from Devonshire, England, where 
these rocks were first described. 

"The carboniferous or coal-bearing limestones afford a great diversity of 
soils, but the conglomerate, or sandstones cementing pebbles together, are 
the most unproductive. Extensive sandstones intercolate the fossiliferous 
limestones, and, of course, need vegetable mould and barn-yard manures and 
phosphates. But the limestones that underlie the coal measures produce 



MINERAL RESOURCES. -J 21 

soils that nearly, if not quite, equal the bluegrass soils of the lower Silurian. 
While not producing bluegrass like those soils, they yield larger crops of to- 
bacco, maize, the smaller grains, and fruits. 

"The quaternary is an ancient alluvium transported from the place of 
origin and deposited as a sediment when the water retired. No distinctive 
traits mark it. It is comparatively infertile. 

"Recent soils are those formed /// siYu from the country bed-rock, as we 
have said, or are late alluvial deposits. The latter may be derived from di- 
verse rocks, and may in themselves possess all the virtues and all the foibles 
of their ancestry. Wonderfully productive for a few seasons after their de- 
posit, they soon wear out and yield but moderate harvests under good cul- 
tivation. "^ 

Mineral Resources. — The rich and abundant deposits of coal and iron 
are the most important of the economic mineral resources of Kentucky. 
The eastern coal area, a part of the great Appalachian system, comprising 
bituminous, cannel, and splint coals, the latter admirably adapted to iron 
and steel-making, covers about ten thousand square miles. The western 
coal-measures, an extension of the Illinois field, comprise nearly four thou- 
sand square miles. The iron-ore deposits are of good quality and widely 
distributed; it may be safely assumed that the iron districts cover twenty 
thousand square miles, occurring profusely in the subcarboniferous and 
carboniferous limestones, often the strata of ore being in juxtaposition with 
beds of coal, which can be employed in their reduction. 

Galena has been found in strata of the lower silurian and subcarbonif- 
erous limestones in veins of limited extent, but has not yet been successfully 
worked. 

Good building stones are procured from sandstones and oolitic limestones 
of the subcarboniferous formation, and from the silurian limestones. Sul- 
phate of baryta, fluor-spar, saltpeter, gypsum, and selenite, fire and pottery 
clays, occur in more or less abundance. Springs impregnated with salt here 
and there exist, and salt brine is obtained from wells in the eastern coal 
district, and in the subcarboniferous rocks in the western part of the State; 
Petroleum has been obtained by boring wherever the upper devonian shales 
are overlaid by thick strata of subcarboniferous sand-rocks, and "natural 
gas" may be procured by boring in similar areas. 

Vegetation. — The distribution of the forests especially illustrates the pecu- 
liarity of the soils of Kentucky. The lower silurian soils produce the sugar 
maple, the tulip tree, blue ash, black walnut, hickory, elm, and honey 
locust. Extensive forests of beech, oak, water maple, and yellow poplar, 
characterize the upper silurian and devonian belt, and wild cherry and black 
walnut occur sparsely. The rich, well-drained upper lands of the subcar- 
boniferous limestones sustain magnificent forests of blue ash and black 
walnut. On the upper sandstone soils of the subcarboniferous formation 

I Major William J. Davis, in Farmers' Almanac, 1883. 

46 



72 2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

are six or seven species of oak, while in the valleys the tulip tree and the 
sweet gum grow; limited areas of pine are found in the more mountainous 
regions. Almost the entire carboniferous district of Eastern Kentucky is 
covered with primeval forests of walnut, oak, ash, hickory, wild cherry, and 
other timbers of great commercial value. In the swamps and bottom lands 
of the quaternary formation, the most common forest tree is the cypress; on 
the banks of streams the cottonwood flourishes; elsewhere the pecan and 
catalpa abound. Kentucky, in area of woodland, is exceeded by only 
three States. The native forests yet cover fifteen million acres of hill and 
lowland. 

1 ''When the State was first setded by the whites, there was a tract of 
about seven thousand square miles, lying chiefly between the eighty-fifth 
and eighty-seventh meridians, embracing the subcarboniferous formation, 
which was open prairie, covered with rank grass five or six feet high, and 
having no trees, except along the streams. When the land was occupied, 
this region sprang up in timber, and is now densely Avooded wherever it is 
not under cultivation. The name of * The Barrens,'' given to it by the first 
settlers, still attaches to this portion of Kentucky. The former absence of 
trees over this tract has been attributed to destructive wildfires which used 
to sweep over the whole country, and which, it was supposed, were set by 
Indians every fall to destroy animals and noxious serpents; but it is more 
probable that the absence of timber was due to the luxuriant growth of 
grass which took exclusive possession of the soil." 

Despite the fact that Kentucky has resources of coal and iron that ex- 
ceed those of Great Britain, or of Pennsylvania, it is susceptible of a greater 
variety of production than any other State. It produces nearly one-half of 
all the tobacco raised in the United States, and more than half of all the 
hemp ; in the production of cereals, it ranks among the highest. With only 
about eight million acres in cultivation, in the value of agricultural products 
it ranks eighth among the States of the Union. 

The famous bluegrass flourishes in the wooded pasture lands of the 
lower Silurian limestones. Hemp, tobacco, and grains of highly-nutritive 
quality, are largely grown also; it is in this well-watered region, and 
»owhere else, except in a limited similar territory of Tennessee, that the 
celebrated hand-made, sour-mash, copper-distilled Bourbon whisky is made. 
Timothy, clover, and other hay-making grasses, tobacco, wheat, maize, 
potatoes, oats, rye, barley, leguminous and other vegetables are produced 
largely all over the State. The common wild fruits are the nuts of the 
hickory, walnut, beech, and hazel, plums, grapes, blackberries, strawber- 
ries, and pawpaws. Along the rivers and lines of railroad, fruits are largely 
cultivated, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, strawberries, 
raspberries, and currants. Cultivated grapes, owing to the humidity of the 
climate, thrive only in few places ; but in the sandy soils of a portion of 

I Geography of Kentucky, by William J. Davis, ante cit. 



ANIMALS AND ARCHAEOLOGY. 723 

the subcarboniferous hills wild grapevines entangle the forests of oak, and 
it is more than likely that improved varieties of grapes engrafted on these 
hardy native stocks would yield a grateful return to the husbandman's care. 

Anitnals. — All the rock strata of Kentucky are fossiliferous ; the remains 
of marine protozoa, radiates, moUusks, arthropods, and anarthropods, that 
lived in ancient silurian seas ; those of their descendants, of varying forms, 
together with ganoids and other primeval fish, that habited devonian oceans; 
the e.xuviae of their multiplied progeny, many of them with changed organs 
and added functions, surviving myriads of years afterward in the depths of 
seas, upon whose shores, among gigantic ferns and towering reeds and cling- 
ing mosses disported archetypal reptiles, are found entombed in the solid 
limestones, or imbedded in the clays derived from argillaceous rocks, some 
of them as perfect in all structural details as they were on the day they first 
lay dead in the ooze on the sea-floor. 

In the swampy salt licks an immense number of bones have been found. 
Year after year, for many thousand years, herbivorous animals visited these 
licks to procure the salt they needed. Buried here in the "recent" soils, 
are the remains of deer and bison; and below these, in the older quaternary, 
lie fossil skeletons of the mastodon and mammoth elephants, the elk, and a 
species of musk-ox. 

There is no evidence that man occupied this territory contemporaneously 
Avith the elephant; but before his advancing footsteps have retired to remoter 
fastnesses and fields the musk-ox, the elk, and the bison, while other wild 
animals, such as the bear, the wolf, the panther, the deer, the wildcat, com- 
mon enough one hundred years ago, are now rarely seen. 

Birds and reptiles, such as are common to the eastern slope of the Mis- 
sissippi valley, abound. Insects injurious to vegetation, are happily few. 
Fish are not found plentifully enough in our rivers, and the success of a 
commission to stock the streams with food fish has been hoped for until now, 
the work having just been discontinued by the Legislature sitting in Frank- 
fort. The translucent eyeless fish and crawfish of Kentucky caves, are 
pecuhar to this region. 

Kentucky is pre-eminently a stock and cattle-producing State. The 
thoroughbred horses, beef, and milch-cattle raised here, are exported to all 
parts of the United States and to Europe. Its mules supply the Southern 
markets. Hogs and sheep are raised to a considerable extent, but the latter 
industry is seriously interfered with, if not rendered generally unprofitable, 
because of the vast number of sheep annually killed by the nine hundred 
thousand untaxed curs, and other dogs of low degree, that infest the State, 
a larger species of very costly vermin. 

ArcJmology. — In many parts of Kentucky are found vestiges of a former 
people, in the form of embankments and mounds made of earth or stones, 
or a combination of these two. Of the history of these people nothing is 
actually known, but much romantic conjecture has been indulged concern- 



724' HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ing them. They are called "mound-builders," from their relics, and are 

spoken of as "mysterious," "wonderful," "remarkable," "highly civil- 
ized," "an agricultural people," "a warlike people," "progressive in art,"" 
"sun-worshipers," etc. 

A list of "the ancient monuments hitherto discovered in this State" is 

appended, which has a certain value now, although all traces of many of 
the "monuments" have been obliterated. 

iRAFINESQUE'S CATALOGUE OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS IN KENTUCKY. 

COUNTIES, ETC., (/. e. Counties as in 1826O No. of No. of 

Sites. Mons. 

In Adair, on the Cumberland river i 3. 

Bath, on the waters of Licking river i 3 

Boone, on the Ohio, a town near Burlington, etc 4 S^ 

Bourbon, a circus of one thousand four hundred and fifty feet, on Licking 

river, a town, polygon, of four thousand six hundred and seventy-five 

feet, on Stoner's creek, etc 5 4^ 

Bracken, great battle-ground, etc , near Augusta, iron rings and a copper 

medal with unknown letters, etc 4 * 

Caldwell, a stone fort on Tradewater river i I 

Calloway, a mound fifteen feet high, on Blood river I I 

Campbell, near Covington, and at Big Bone Lick 2 4. 

Christian, near Hopkinsville 5 "^ 

Clarke, near Winchester, Boonesboro 5 '^ 

Clay, near Manchester 6 6- 

Fayette, on North Elkhorn, a beautiful circus, a dromus, etc.; on South 

Elkhorn, near Lexington, a polygon town, L, several squares, mounds, 

graves, etc.; nine East Indian shells found in the ground, etc 15 36- 

Gallatin, at the mouth of the Kentucky river I i 

Garrard, principally mounds and small circus on Paint creek, Sugar creek, 

etc 3 12 

Greenup, fine remains opposite the mouth of the Scioto I 3; 

Harlan, on the Cumberland river, near its source 2 5 

Hart, mounds near Green river, etc., mummies in caves 2 7 

Harrison, a circus near Cynthiana, many mounds, round, elliptical, or 

ditched, sixteen, twenty, twenty-five, and thirty feet high 5 16- 

Hickman, a fine teocalli on the Mississippi river, below the iron-banks, four 

hundred and fifty feet long, ten high, only thirty wide I I 

Jefferson, on the Ohio, near Louisville 4 I 

Jessamine, mounds, graves, embankments 4 10 

Knox, on the Cumberland river, and near Barboursville 3 7" 

Lewis, on the Ohio i i 

Lincoln, on Dick's river, and near Wilmington 2 I 

Livingston, an octagon, of two thousand eight hundred and fifty-two feet, 

on Hurricane creek, etc., mouth of the Cumberland 3 14. 

Logan, towns and mounds on Muddy river, etc.; a silver medal found in a 

mound 10 42 

Madison, near the Kentucky, etc., mounds 3 7 

I In introduction to Marshall's History of Kentucky, 1826. 



II 



MEDICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 725 

CATALOGUE OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS. (Continued.) ^.°- °*' ^°- °^ 

' Sites. Mons. 

INIason, near Washington, a small teocalli 2 2 

McCracken, on the Ohio, a fine square teocalli, of twelve hundred feet, and 

fourteen feet high, on the Mississippi, five rows of mounds, etc .... 3 35 

Mercer, a fort on Dick's river; several remains on Salt river, etc 6 12 

JMontgomery, squares, hexagons, polygons, etc., on Somerset and Buck creek, 
many high, round, elliptical, or ditched mounds ; a fine circus or circu- 
lar temple, etc lo 48 

Pendleton, at the fork of Licking river I i 

Perry, a long dromus, near Hazard i I 

Pulaski, stone mounds, on Pitman and Buck creeks 2 7 

Kockcastle, a stone grave two hundred feet long, five wide, three high, near 

Mount Vernon I I 

Scott, a ditched town near Georgetown, on the South Elkhorn, a square on 

Dry run, etc 5 12 

Shelby, near Shelbyville, and south of it 2 2 

Trigg, a walled town, seven thousand five hundred feet in circumference, 
at Canton, on the Cumberland, inclosing several large mounds and square 
teocalli, one hundred and fifty feet long, ninety wide, twenty-two high. 

Many mounds on Cumberland, Little river, Cadiz, etc 5 24 

"Warren, a ditched town, near Bowling Green, inclosing five houses, two 

teocallis, mounds, etc 3 16 

"VVhitley, a town on the Cumberland, above Williamsburg, with twenty 
houses, and a teocalli three hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred 
and fifty wide, twelve high. Remains of towns, with houses, on the 

waters of Laurel river and Watts' creek 5 66 

AVoodford, a fine octagon teocalli of twelve hundred feet, and eight high. 
A town of twenty-seven hundred feet, on South Elkhorn, a square on 
Clear creek, etc 6 12 

Total 148 505 

Progress of Medical Science a7id Literature. — It is probable Dr. Thomas 
AValker, of Virginia, was the first physician who ever visited Kentucky. In 
1745, he came and negotiated treaties with the Indian tribes for the estab- 
lishment of a colony, which was announced in Washington's journal (1754) 
as Walker's settlement on the Cumberland, accompanied by a map, dated 
1750. Some time just before 1770, Dr. John Connolly, of Pittsburgh, visited 
the Falls of the Ohio, and three years later, in company with Captain 
Thomas Bullitt, patented the land on which Louisville now stands. But little 
is known of the professional performances of either Walker or Connolly, ex- 
cept the fact that they were both men of superior intelligence, and of far 
more than average cultivation. They were both noted as enterprising busi- 
ness men rather than great practitioners of medicine. In a "History of 
the Medical Literature of Kentucky," ^ Dr. Lunsford P. Yandell (the elder) 
says: "The first surgical operation ever performed in Kentucky by a white 
man occurred in 1767." Colonel James Smith, in that year, accompanied 

I Transactions of the Kentucky State Medical Society, 1874. 



726 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

by his black servant, Jamie, traveled from the mouth of the Tennessee river 
across the country to Carolina, now Tennessee. On their way, Colonel 
Smith stepped upon a projecting fragment of cane, which pierced his foot, 
and was broken off on a level with the skin. Swelling quickly came on, 
causing the flesh to rise above the end of the cane. Having no other in- 
struments than a knife, a moccasin awl, and a pair of bullet-molds, the 
colonel directed his servant to seize the piece of cane with the bullet-molds, 
while he raised the skin with the awl and cut the flesh away from around 
the piece of cane, and, with the assistance of Jamie, the foreign body was 
drawn out. Colonel Smith then treated the wound with the bruised bark 
from the root of a lind tree, and subsequently by poultices made of the 
same material, using the mosses of the old logs in the forest, which he 
secured with strips of elm bark, as a dressing. 

Dr. Frederick Ridgely, a favorite pupil of Dr. Rush, was sent from 
Philadelphia early in 1779, as surgeon to a vessel sailing with letters of 
marque and reprisal off the coast of Virginia. This vessel was chased into 
the Chesapeake bay by a British man of war. As the ship's colors were 
struck to the enemy. Dr. Ridgely leaped overboard, and narrowly escaped 
capture by swimming two miles to the shore. He was at once thereafter 
appointed an officer in the medical department of the Colonial army. A 
few months later, he resigned his commission, and settled, in 1790, at Lex- 
ington, where he speedily attained a leading position as a master of the 
healing art. From Lexington he was frequently called, in the capacity of 
surgeon, to accompany militia in their expeditions against the Lidians. He 
was appointed surgeon-general to the army of "Mad Anthony Wayne," 
returning finally to Lexington, where he took part in the organization of 
the first medical college established in the West. Dr. Ridgely was a fre- 
quent contributor to the American Medical Repertory, published at Phila- 
delphia. He was the intimate friend of Dr. Samuel Brown, also of Lex- 
ington. At the organization of the medical department of Transylvania 
University, in 1799, Brown and Ridgely Avere the first professors. Ridgely, 
in that year, delivered a course of lectures to a small class, and, as the or- 
ganization of the faculty had not been completed, no further attempts at 
teaching were made. Dr. Samuel Brown, like his colleague, Ridgely, was 
a surgeon of great ability and large experience. These two gentlemen added 
greatly to the growth and popularity of Lexington by their renown as sur- 
geons. They attracted patients from the remote settlements on the frontier, 
and were both frequent contributors to the medical literature of that time. 
The cases reported by these gentlemen were numerous, interesting, carefully 
observed, and ably reported. Dr. Brown was a student at the University 
of Edinburgh with Hosack, Davidge, Ephraim McDowell, and Brocken- 
borough, of Virginia. Hosack became famous as a professor in the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons, at New York; Davidge laid the foundation of 
the University of Maryland ; Brown was one of the first professors in Tran- 



EPHRAIM m'DOWELL, M. D. 



727 




sylvania University, at Lexington, while 
McDowell achieved immortal fame in sur- 
gery as the father of ovariotomy. Strong 
rivalry in the practice of medicine at Lex- 
ington, between Brown and Ridgely, and 
Fishback and Pindell, had much to do with 
the difficulties attending the efforts of the 
two former to establish the medical school. 
In 1798, Jenner made public his great dis- 
covery of the protective powers of vaccin- 
ation. Dr. Brown, of Lexington, was his 
first imitator on this continent. Within 
three years from the date of Jenner's first 
publication, and before the experiment had 
been tried elsewhere in this country. Brown 
had already vaccinated successfully more 
than five hundred people at Lexington. dr. ephraim m'dowell. 

In 181 7, Transylvania University being formally organized, with such men 
as Daniel Drake, Benjamin W. Dudley, Joseph Buchanan, Overton, and 
Blythe, a full course of lectures were delivered to a class of twenty, one of 
whom, John Lawson McCuUough, having passed a satisfactory examination, 
was, at the end of the term, formally admitted to the degree of doctor of 
medicine. During the winter of 181 7-18, bitter jealousies existing in the 
profession at Lexington, the faculty was dissolved, Drake returning to Cin- 
cinnati, and Overton settling at Nashville. About the close of the year 
1818, the Rev. Horace Holley having been chosen president of the univer- 
sity, both the academical and medical departments acquired new life. In 
the year 18 19, a medical faculty, embracing the gifted scholar, Charles 
Caldwell, Samuel Brown, Dudley, Richardson, and Blythe, was organized. 
In the fall of that year began the brilliant career of Transylvania University 
as an educational institution. Lexington was then a more important city 
than Cincinnati. It had better schools; it was more popular and more 
widely known. The very best people of every section gathered at Lexing- 
ton to learn the arts and sciences, and with them came the afflicted. At this 
time, Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley, having just returned from Europe, began to 
astonish the people of the West, and finally the world, by the brilliant results 
of his operations, especially in lithotomy. 

In 1795, fresh from the LTniversity of Edinburgh, came a young physi- 
cian, named Ephraim McDowell, who settled at Danville, an aristocratic 
little colony not far from Lexington. Here he displayed such remarkable 
talents as a physician and surgeon that he soon divided honors with the 
great men at Lexington ; and while at the latter point the enterprising found- 
ers of what was soon to be the first great medical school of the West were 
busying themselves with schemes for the permanent establishment of Tran- 



728 HISTORY OF KENTLXKY. 

sylvania University, McDowell, at Danville, laid the foundation for a great 
ifevolution in the ars chirurgica. A Mrs. Crawford residing on Green river, 
sixty-five miles south of Danville, had an enormous tumor of the abdomen, 
which, continuing to grow, greatly alarmed her. She sent for Dr. McDow- 
ell, who visited her bedside, and, after careful examination, he promised to 
perform the experiment of attempting to extirpate the tumor, should she be 
vvilling to visit his home at Danville. She did so, with the full understand- 
ing that the experiment might end in the sudden termination of her life. 
In December, 1809, the operation was performed; and, to her infinite de- 
light, as well as the joy and renown of the experimenter, recovery followed. 
She enjoyed comfortable health for a period of thirty-two years after this 
operation, and died, at length, in the seventy-ninth year of her age. Being 
encouraged by the result of this first operation, similar cases were subjected 
to extirpation, and in 181 7, in the Philadelphia Eclectic Repertory and Ana- 
lytical Review, in an article of less than three octavo pages, entitled ' ' Three 
Cases of Extirpation of Diseased Ovaria," the first publication of ovarioto- 
my was made to the world. In 1827, Dr. Johnson, editor of the London 
Medico- Chirurgical Review, after announcing the results of five cases, four 
of whom had recovered, says : ' ' There were circumstances in the narrative 
of some of the first cases that raised misgivings in our minds, for which 
uncharitableness we ask pardon of God and of Dr. Ephraim McDowell, of 
Danville." 

McDowell was a man of fine personal presence, and, although bold to 
the extent of originality in surgery, he was modest even to timidity. It is 
not known how many times he performed ovariotomy, yet it is certain he 
repeated it so often as to thoroughly establish it, not only as a legitimate 
operation in surgery, but placed it high in the list of the great triumphs of 
science over disease. This great ovariotomist had become so widely known 
that people flocked to him at Danville from every part of the country. In 
the autumn of 181 2, he performed lithotomy on a youth of seventeen }^ears, 
from Maury county, Tennessee. This youth was James K. Polk, afterward 
president of the United States. So happy was he, that he carried the cal- 
culus, which McDowell had taken from him, to his home in Tennessee, and 
exhibited it to his friends. This same calculus was exhibited by Professor 
Samuel D. Gross to the Kentucky State Medical Society, at Louisville, on 
Wednesday, October 31, 1852. In 1852, lithotomy had been done by Dr. 
B. W. Dudley two hundred and seven times ; Ephraim McDowell, thirty- 
two times; A. G. Smith (afterward known as A. Goldsmith), fifty times; 
W. Gardner, fourteen times ; J. M. Bush, six times; John Shackelford, four 
times ; Henry Miller, twice ; John Hardin, five times ; S. B. Richardson, 
twice; John C. Richardson, once: John Craige, twice; W. H. Donne, once; 
Walter Brashear, unknown ; E. L. Dudley, once ; D. W. Yandell, four times ; 
L. P. Yandell, four times ; S. D. Gross, thirty times. It was known that Dr. 
Brashear, of Bardstown, had performed the operation of lithotomy a consid- 



11 



PROGRESS OF SURGERY. 



729 



erable number of times, yet at the time of Dr. Gross' historical sketch in 
1852, it was impossible to obtain any detailed account of the cases. 

Perhaps the most remarkable man who ever adorned the medical profes- 
sion of Kentucky was Benjamin Winslow Dudley, the impress of whose 
personal methods is still strongly marked in the daily practice of his pupils, 
scores of whom still live to adorn the higher walks of the profession all 
over the country. While Dudley was chiefly known for his great success 
in lithotomy, he was at the same time a pioneer in the application of the 
trephine in the relief of injuries to the walls of the cranium. He intro- 
duced the common roller bandage in the treatment of wounds of the limbs. 
In 1825, he relieved an enormous aneurism of the axilla by ligature of the 
subclavian artery. In 1841, he success- 
fully tied the common carotid artery for 
the relief of an aneurism which pressed 
into the orbit, and occupied a consider- 
able space in the cranial cavity. He 
treated successfully traumatic aneurism 
of the brachial artery by systematic 
compression as early as the autumn of 
1 81 4. Dr. Dudley introduced a simple 
method of treatment of fracture of the 
clavicle by the application of two large 
handkerchiefs to the arm in such a way 
as to force the upper end of the humerus 
upward, backward, and outward, in this 
way making extension in the longitudi- 
nal axis of the broken bone, which pre- 
vented overlapping of the fragments. 
Various other devices have since been employed, notably that of Dr. Lewis 
A. Sayre, of New York, whose method differs from that of Dr. Dudley only 
in the substitution of court plaster for the handkerchiefs. 

In August, 1806, Dr. Walter Brashear, of Bardstown, performed the 
first amputation at the hip-joint, ever done in the United States, and in a 
manner different from any other. The subject was a mulatto boy, belonging 
to the monks at Saint Joseph's College. No publication had at that time 
ever appeared to indicate an attempt by any other person, and it is not cer- 
tain the operation through the joint had ever before been successfully done 
anywhere. Dr. Brashear was a remarkable man. Born in Prince George 
county, Maryland, February 11, 1776, and having studied medicine with 
Dr. Frederick Ridgely, and afterward attended lectures at the University 
of Pennsylvania, under Benjamin Rush, Rhea Barton, and the great sur- 
geon, Philip Physick, he sailed in 1799, as surgeon to the ship Jane, for 
China. In one of the Chinese ports, he successfully amputated a woman's 
breast for malignant disease, greatly to the astonishment and delight of the 




DR. BENJAMIN W. DUDLEY. 



73 O HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

medical men and the nobility of China. Dr. Brashear left Bardstown and 
went to Lexington, in 1813, where he remained four years, and in 1832, 
removed with his family to the parish of Saint Mary, Louisiana. 

Exsection of the clavicle was done for the first time in the United States 
in 1813, by Dr. Charles McCreary, of Hartford, Kentucky. The subject 
was a lad named Irvin, of Greenville. He fully recovered, and survived 
the operation thirty-five years, dying in Muhlenberg county, April, 1849. 

On February 4, 1819, Dr. Henrie McMurtrie, of Louisville, published a 
book of two hundred and fifty-three pages, on miscellaneous subjects, in- 
cluding a Florula Louisvillensis, of about four hundred genera, and six 
hundred species of plants growing in the vicinity of the falls. Dr. McMur- 
trie was a versatile, rather than erudite, author. He announced the danger 
of persons relying upon the fallacious doctrine of "seasoning" against the 
endemic fevers, and warned emigrants that a single attack rather predisposed 
a person to continued attacks, than affording any protection. His strong 
appeals to the local authorities in various contributions to the daily papers, 
led to the establishment of the City Hospital, in 181 7. The institution was 
partly a Government, and partly a city enterprise, and was long known as 
the "Louisville City Marine Hospital." 

At Danville, the partner of McDowell, Dr. A. G. Smith, who afterward 
changed his name to Alban Goldsmith, was the first to introduce the operation 
of lithotripsy, an operation for crushing a calculus into small fragments, by 
means of which it could be voided, instead of subjecting the patient to the 
more hazardous procedure of cutting it out through an external opening. The 
first operation of this kind ever done in the United States, was done by Dr. 
Smith, on a gentleman in Lincoln county, Kentucky, in 1829. He had 
just returned from Europe, where he had witnessed Civiale operate in this 
way, and was, perhaps, the first imitator of this great genius in surgery. 

The truss now in universal use in the treatment of hernia, was the device 
of a Kentucky gentleman named Stagner, and a Dr. Hood; Stagner having 
invented the first form of the instrument, and Hood having improved upon 
the model so as to perfect it. 

Operations for the radical cure of strangulated hernia by Dr. Samuel B. 
Richardson, of Louisville, and Dr. W. L. Sutton, of Georgetown, were 
among the earlier operations of this kind ; while Dr. Bowman, of Harrods- 
burg, is entitled to the credit of having devised an instrument for injecting 
strong stimulants and caustic solutions into the tissues around the apertures 
through which hernial protrusions were wont to occur. These operations 
by Dr. Bowman attracted great attention at the time, and with various modi- 
fications are still in favor with the best surgeons. 

Dr. Henry Miller, lately, and for nearly forty years, a resident of Louis- 
ville, from 1830 to 1869, performed many remarkable operations in surgery^ 
and was, perhaps, the first physician to introduce the practice of topical appli- 
cations in the treatment of uterine diseases. In the department of diseases 



NOTED PIONEER PHYSICIANS. 73 r 

of women, Dr. Miller became an acknowledged authority, being the author 
of a text-book on obstetrics and the diseases of women, which is still in use 
in nearly all medical colleges in the world. In August, 1849, Dr. Miller 
dilated the urethra, and introducing a curved pair of polypus forceps, seized 
and extracted a rough, large calculus weighing two hundred and sixty-four 
grains, from a female in her fifteenth year. She recovered rapidly, and 
returned a few days after the operation to her home, entirely restored to 
health. 

Dr. William Gardner, of Woodsonville, Avas one of the most successful 
lithotomists, and one of the ablest general practitioners of medicine and 
surgery that ever graced the State. In a little town of less than five hun- 
dred inhabitants, this great surgeon, for about forty years continued the 
quiet, though busy, occupation of his professional work, performing now 
and then, deeds of which Sir Astley Cooper might well have been proud. 
It was an interesting sight at Louisville during the meeting of the American 
Medical Association, in 1875, to witness a small coterie of the great masters 
in medicine and surgery, hovering about the old backwoodsman from Hart 
county, who sat, clothed like an humble farmer, discussing with Gross, 
Sayre, Paul F. Eve, William K. Bowling, J. W. S. Gouley, Nathan S. Davis, 
and J. J. Woodward, the predisposing causes to calculous diseases, and the 
merits of the gorget, the scalpel, and the bistoury for making the section ; 
the best position for the incision, the size of the opening, and the after 
treatment; all these masters, and many more, giving breathless attention to 
the measured sentences of the humble rustic. 

William Gardner, of Woodsonville; John Shackleford, of Maysville; 
Edward C. Drane, of New Castle; John Swayne, of Ballardsville; Joshua 
B. Flint, of Louisville , Louis Rogers, Llewellyn Powell, Erasmus D. Foree, 
Benjamin R. Palmer, Middleton Goldsmith, John D. Jackson, and Lunsford 
P. Yandell, the elder, are names which will live in the history of Kentucky 
medicine — in fact, in the classical history of the healing art — as long as the 
pioneers in a great profession shall continue to receive the just reward of 
great discovery and meritorious labors. McDowell, Smith, the Dudleys, 
Taylor Bradford, Henry Miller, Walter Brashear, John D. Jackson, and 
Asbury Evans, are names that must stand side by side with those of Samuel 
D. Gross, Dupeytren, John Hunter, and Sir Astley Cooper, all great masters 
of surgery, each one contributing important additions to the grandeur of its 
achievements. 

When Transylvania University was at its zenith, Dr. Alban G. Smith 
(afterward Dr. A. Goldsmith), of Danville, came to Louisville, and, pro- 
curing a charter from the Legislature in 1833, undertook to organize a 
medical school, under the tide of the Louisville Medical Institute. Failing 
in this, he went to Cincinnati, and finally to New York. 

The Transylvania school, at Lexington, was much disturbed by the con- 
flicting theories of disease taught by different professors, and in 1837, 



732 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Professor Charles Caldwell, a man of great scholarly attainments and world- 
wide reputation, resigned his chair at Transylvania, and proceeded at once 
to organize the faculty of the Louisville Institute, In September, 1837, the 
first course of lectures was inaugurated, and in 1838, Professor Caldwell 
delivered the first clinical lectures on medicine ever delivered in the West, 
at the Louisville City Hospital. The institute grew so rapidly it soon ex- 
ceeded in importance all other schools of the West. In 1845, it was reor- 
ganized under a new charter, in the name of the " Medical Department of 
the University of Louisville." It was here Drake, Short, T. G. Richardson, 
Gross, Austin Flint, Sr. , Benjamin Silliman, and Henry Miller all won their 
renown. Gross' "Pathological Anatomy, and Foreign Bodies in the Air 
Passages," and the principal part of his great work on surgery, were all 
written at Louisville, where his chief renown in surgery was won, and the 
grace and power of his eloquence were finished. 

In 1850, the Kentucky School of Medicine was established. The school 
at Lexington having gone down, the Dudleys, Bush, Peter, and Robert J. 
Breckinridge, drew about them in this new school such men as Joshua B. 
FUnt, John Hardin, Henry M. Bullitt, E. D. Force, and others not less 
gifted. Soon the old university at Lexington closed its doors, while the 
university at Louisville reluctantly followed the same course. Just at the 
moment when the Kentucky school had conquered all opposition, that 
brilliant though unfortunate leader. Dr. Middleton Goldsmith, aroused 
such opposition to his policy in the faculty, by his publications on mili- 
tary surgery, as to cripple the efiiciency of the school. Benson, Powell, 
Bayless, Bullitt, and Bell, set about forming a new faculty for the univer- 
sity. In 1865, the Kentucky school having closed its doors, the university, 
now embracing in its faculty the most active men of the Kentucky school, 
opened to a large class of students. The combination of the hitherto bel- 
ligerent elements of the two faculties led to a transfer of the library, 
museum, and all the college apparatus and paraphernalia of the Kentucky 
school to the university, and a surrender of its charter, by the trustees, to 
the Legislature. 

The Kentucky school of the present is acting under a revival of the old 
charter, by an act of the Legislature, approved some twenty years ago. 

Ketitucky Jurisprudence. — It is believed that a brief historical narrative 
of the rise and progress of the laws of Kentucky, including the principal 
acts of legislation, a few of the important judicial decisions, together with 
the main features of our several State constitutions, may not be unaccepta- 
ble to the general reader. An attempt will here be made to give an outline 
sketch of some prominent points in the legal polity of the State, by group- 
ing it under four periods. The periods selected are the following: First — 
From the formation of the State government, in 1792, to June i, 1800, when 
the second constitution was adopted; Second — From thence to 1830; Third 
— From thence to i860; Fourth — From thence to the present time. 



OUR FIRST LEGISLATURES. 735 

First — The Constitution adopted at Danville April 19, 1792, provided 
that all laws then in force in the State of Virginia, not inconsistent with the 
Constitution, and of a general nature, and not local to the eastern part of 
Virginia, should be in force here until altered or repealed by the Legislature. 
This clause in our first constitution brought to Kentucky the common law 
of England, and the general statutes of Parliament in aid thereof, prior to 
the fourth year of the reign of James I., except as modified by the legis- 
lation of Virginia, just mentioned. A single section of our first constitution 
thus imported to the State a large body of law, which had been gathered in 
England and Virginia. The special work of our Legislature and courts 
was to make such additions and alterations as would adjust this body of law 
to the condition and wants of the new Commonwealth. 

A marked characteristic of the legislation of this first period is the dearth 
of all laws relating to business corporations, such as banks, insurance, turn- 
pike and railroad companies, which now engross so much of the time of 
our Legislatures. A few charters, incorporating academies and libraries in 
some of the oldest counties and towns in the State, constitute nearly all that 
is to be found in our early statutes upon the subject of corporations. The 
act incorporating the Frankfort Bridge Company, and the law of 1798, 
making a university of Transylvania Seminary, nearly completes the list of 
corporations as made prior to 1800. 

The desire for educational improvement, which in later periods has been 
so much outstripped by the thirst for gain, was then in the ascendancy in 
our corporate legislation. The rising trade and commerce of the State was 
just beginning to make its w^ay over our unimproved dirt roads, and to creep 
slowly down our rivers filled with obstacles to navigation, until it reached a 
market at New Orleans, the natural receptacle for the produce carried upon 
our waterway. 

Among the important general laws of the first period, we may reckon 
first the meagre revenue law of 1792-3, providing for the frugal wants of 
the State government. Its subjects for taxation are indicative of the pov- 
erty of that day. No specific taxation upon banks, dealers in exchange, or 
merchants of spirituous liquors is found upon its lists. No gold or silver 
plate, no stocks in banks or other corporations, crowd the narrow columns 
of the assessor's book. The items of chariots, coaches, and carriages to 
be found in the schedule embrace articles owned by a few wealthy settlers 
from Virginia, who were then to be occasionally seen traveling over the State 
in search of land. 

Second — The famous wolf-scalp law makes its first appearance in 1795. 
Its frequent reappearance since has made it almost a setded part of the 
polity of the State. 

Third — The act of 1798, in reference to the authentication of records, 
deeds, and policies of insurance, shows that the commercial intercourse of 
Kentucky with other parts of the LInion had already become so consider- 



734 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

able as to make it necessary to have some mode of giving credit to foreign 
instruments of business. 

Fourth — The act altering the form of execution so that it could be levied 
upon real estate, as well as personalty, is much in advance of some of our 
sister States. 

Fifth — An act for the better regulation of towns gives an inside view of 
the primitive customs and practices of the period. It affixes a penalty for 
the offense of racing horses in a town, or shooting at a mark on a street. 
It vests the trustees with power to make proper regulations respecting the 
public spring, and subjects any persons violating such regulations to suit- 
able punishment. It is evident that the old town spring was an object of 
much solicitude. In fact, this spring often determined the location of our 
first county towns. 

Sixth — The benevolent spirit of our early Legislature is shown in an act 
of this period to aid poor persons in their lawsuits. This statute enjoined 
the officers of the State to issue and serve process for such persons, free of 
all costs to the litigants. Another law pervaded by a like spirit furnished a 
cheap court of arbitration for suitors desiring to save expense and delay in 
the trial of their cases. 

Seventh — The prosperity of the Commonwealth was greatly checked, 
its improvement and settlement retarded, its citizens occasionally alarmed, 
and often ruined in their fortunes by reason of the interference of conflict- 
ing claims founded on the conflicting land laws of Virginia. Claims dor- 
mant, and unknown to the neighborhood of the disputed tract of land, were 
often bought up, not only to alarm, but eventually to cast out on the world, 
numerous industrious families in all parts of the State. Late and inferior 
claims to land were held up and concealed until the witnesses to establish 
the superior title were dead, or had removed to remote places', or the prop- 
erty had fallen into the hands of persons ignorant of the sources of proof 
respecting it. 

To afford some alleviation of an evil so great, our early courts, acting on 
the general principles of equity, adjudged compensation for improvements 
to innocent occupants when evicted from their farms. To foster this equi- 
table principle, and render the mode of recovering compensation more safe 
and expeditious, the Legislature of 1797 passed what is usually known as 
the occupying-claimant laiv. This act secured to the improver the cost and 
value of seating and improving his farm, as against the rightful owner of the 
same. The act was upheld by our appellate court with a strong hand, and 
became exceedingly dear to the people as the palladium of their homes. 

Eighth — The legislation of 1798 is extremdy rich in valuable laws. Acts 
upon the subjects of gaming, interest and usury, master and servant, and 
many other topics; characterize this period. 

Ninth — Perhaps the most remarkable statute passed by the Legislature 
of '98 is that making amelioration in the penal laws of the State. The severe 



THE EARLY COURTS. 



735 



punishment of death, which the law prior to this date awarded to so many 
minor felonies, was now abandoned. Experience had demonstrated that 
the previous cruel and sanguinary laws of the Commonwealth defeated their 
own purposes, by engaging the benevolence of men to withhold prosecu- 
tions, smother testimony, or listen to it with bias. Acting upon these ideas, 
the law of '98 to amend the penal laws was passed. The penitentiary was 
substitued for the gallows in many instances. The crimes for which capital 
punishment was inflicted were reduced to few in number. The law is a 
striking proof of the spirit of humanity which prevailed among those who 
laid the foundations of our Commonwealth. Its beneficial workings are 
acknowledged in subsequent messages of Governor Greenup. 

Tenth — The courts of justice for the period consisted of the Justices' 
Court, the County Court, the Court of Quarter Sessions, the District Court, 
the General Court, and the Appellate Court. Some of the justices were 
also judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions, which had an extensive juris- 
diction in cases of law and equity. Appeals could be taken from the single 
justice to the quarter-sessions court, thence to the county court. The law 
establishing district courts divided the State into six districts, and gave these 
courts both common law andxhancery jurisdiction in most causes of action 
within their districts. These courts superseded the Oyer and Terminer, and 
in addition to civil matters they had a general criminal jurisdiction. Appeals 
lay in civil cases from the judgments both of the district and those of the 
quarter-sessions courts. The pleadings and proceedings in all these courts 
were marked by a spirit of simplicity. The early legislation of the State in 
this respect shows a strong dislike to many of the evils which abound in the 
old common-law system of pleading and practice. The desire, as manifested 
by the law, was to try cases upon their substantial merits, irrespective of 
errors of form. Some of the earliest legislation was directed to efforts to 
correct the delays incident to pleadings in real actions. The declaration and 
subsequent pleadings in the old writ of right were thoroughly reformed, and 
the issues simplified. 

Eleventh — The punishments for misdemeanors were principally the pil- 
lory, whipping-post, ducking-stool, and stocks. The sheriff's fee for ducking 
or putting any person into the stocks was forty-one and one-half cents each. 

Twelfth — The foundation of our first statutes upon the subject of wills, 
descents, frauds, bills of exchange, attachments, executors, and administra- 
tors, were made a part of the legal polity of this early period. 

No laws upon the subject of exemptions from execution, or homestead 
acts, or valuation laws, had yet found their way into our legislation. A 
short replevin law of three months is all that is to be found in the period 
under review. Imprisonment for debt had not yet been abolished. No 
judicial decision of the period is recalled as being of special importance. 
The case of Kenton versus McConnell, decided in 1794, is perhaps the most 
noted, as the decision led to an attempt on the part of the I^egislature to 



736 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

address Judges Muter and Sebastian out of office, on account of theix rulings 
in that case. Such is an imperfect outhne of the laws in the first period of 
our sketch. 

The Second Period of our sketch begins with the adoption of the second 
constitution of the State, and ends in 1830. During this portion of the 
State's history much was done to perfect the jurisprudence of the Common- 
wealth. All the particulars can not be given in this summary, but some of 
the most important may be grouped under the following general heads : 

First — The first judiciary system was found to be inconvenient and ex- 
pensive. The old district and general courts were abolished in 1802, and 
circuit courts established. 

Second — The increasing commerce of the State, the great scarcity of 
money, and extravagant ideas on the part of some of our politicians, as to 
the benefits to be derived by the public from the establishment of banks, led 
to the creation of two banking institutions as early as 1806. The first of 
these, chartered in 1802, made its way through the Legislature under the 
guise of an insurance company. The second, the Bank of Kentucky, with 
a capital of one million dollars, afterward became a controlling monetary 
power, and exerted much influence upon the politics of the Commonwealth. 

Third — A statute passed in 1808 exhibited some of the growing ill-feeling 
toward England which afterward culminate4 in the war of 1812. This act 
prohibited the reading of all reports and books containing reports of ad- 
judged cases in the kingdom of Great Britain, rendered since the 4th of 
July, 1776. These books were not to be read nor considered as authority 
in any of our courts. The effect of the law, if it had been enforced, was 
to deprive Kentucky of the benefit of all the lights contained in the post- 
revolutionary decisions of England. The law was more injurious to Ken- 
tucky than to England. The act was at first strictly enforced, but soon fell 
into disuse. 

Fourth — Another innovation in the law was the divorce act of 1809. 
While this act was liberal to the wife, in some of the causes for divorce on 
her part, in the matter of cruelty it only entitled her to obtain a separation 
for such mistreatment as endangered her life. The long train of divorces 
which have been granted by our courts since took their rise in this statute. 
Its provisions have been much enlarged with the growth of the State. 

Fifth — An important change in the forms and pleadings for administering 
justice between party and party was made by a statute of 181 1, familiarly 
known as '■'■ Bob Jolmson's laivy This act provided that the plaintiff should 
state in substance, in his declaration, what he claimed of the defendant; 
and the defendant should state in substance what he intended to rely on as in 
defense. Neither party was bound to any particular formality m pleading. 
If their cases were stated so plainly that a fair trial could be had on the 
merits of the cause, no demurrer was to be sustained to any part of the 
pleadings of either side, provided the statements contained in the pleadings 



LAWS OF THE SECOND PERIOD. 737 

substantially apprised the adverse party of the points intended to be relied 
on, and amounted to a substantial cause of action or defense. This law is 
a remarkable production for its day, and its bold author was Colonel Robert 
Johnson, the father of the noted brothers, Richard M., John T., and James 
Johnson. This statute really contains the substance of all the modern re- 
forms introduced by the later codes of practice adopted in the different 
States of the Union, 

Sixth — The Commonwealth has repeatedly sustained great and irrepara- 
ble injury in the loss of some of her best and most valuable citizens by the 
inhuman practice of duelling. The destruction of the peace, happiness, 
and domestic felicity of many families, by this deadly practice, led to the 
enactment of an anti-duelling law in 1811. The act required every officer 
in the State, from constable up to governor, including lawyers and members 
of the Legislature, to swear solemnly that they would never give or accept 
a challenge. The statute denounces duelling as contrary to the principles 
of morality, religion, and civil obligation. It is characterized as a practice 
which, originating in a barbarous age, has been fostered by a savage policy, 
and only perpetuated in this enlightened era by mistaken ideas of honor. 

Seventh — Another innovation in our law was the act of 1813, forbid- 
ding the carrying of concealed deadly weapons. The law met with much 
opposition at the time of its introduction here, and was at first held to be 
unconstitutional, but this ruling was subsequently set aside. 

Eighth — The office of associate circuit judge was abolished in 181 5. The 
working of the circuit court was thereby greatly improved, the tone of its 
decisions was strengthened, and the respect and confidence of the commun- 
ity enlisted in its favor. 

Ninth — The era of banks had now arrived. The State was flooded with 
independent organizations of the kind, mostly chartered in 181 7. These 
acts of incorporation had scarcely come from the molding hands of the Leg- 
islature when they were suddenly repealed. 

Tenth — Two branches of the United States Bank entered the State in 
181 7. They were followed by an act of legislation imposing a State tax of 
sixty thousand dollars upon each of the branches. The validity of this tax 
became a question of fierce litigation. The tax was at first sustained by the 
Appellate Court of Kentucky. The same tribunal decided that the law in- 
corporating the United States Bank was unconstitutional. The Supreme 
Court of the United States ruled differently on both points. These decisions 
entered largely into the bitter political contests of the times. They were 
followed in the United States Supreme Court by the great case of Green 
versus Biddle, in which the occupying-claimant law in Kentucky was de- 
cided to be unconstitutional. The opinion in Green versus Biddle gave 
great alarm throughout the Commonwealth, and led to a strong remonstrance 
to Congress from the Kentucky Legislature. Henry Clay and George Bibb 
were sent to Virginia to effect some compromise of the matter, but they 



738 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

failed in their efforts because of the hostile action of the Virginia Senate. 
The case of Green versus Lifter went a step further, and held that it was not 
necessary for a plaintiff, in a writ of right, to have actual possession in order 
to maintain his suit. This was exactly contrary to the ruling of the Appel- 
late Court of Kentucky, in the case of Speed versus Buford. A feeling of 
general insecurity as to the land titles of the State was the result of these 
conflicting opinions. 

Eleventh — In 1820, the Commonwealth's Bank was chartered, with a 
capital of two million dollars and a two-years' replevin law to support it. 
This was followed, in 1822, in a decision by Judge James Clark, of the 
Bourbon Circuit Court, in the case of Blair versus Williams, holding the re- 
plevin law of 1820 to be unconstitutional. The judge was strongly censured 
by the Legislature for his opinion. About one year after, the Appellate 
Court sustained this decision of Judge Clark. The Legislature again pro- 
tested. This opened up a contest between the Legislature and the judicial 
departments of the government. The result was the attempted abolition of 
the old court and the creation of a new one by the reorganizing act of 1824. 
Two years afterward, in 1826, this act was repealed and the old court re- 
placed upon its former footing. The act of repeal is styled "an act to re- 
move the unconstitutional obstacles thrown in the way of the Court of 
Appeals." Its historical preamble states that the Appellate Court was cre- 
ated by the Constitution; that the judges thereof hold their offices during 
good behavior, and could only be removed by impeachment or address; that 
the Legislature had attempted to obstruct the constitutional court and erect 
another upon its ruins by the acts of 1824 and 1825. The preamble shows 
that the latter acts had been decided by the people at two successive elec- 
tions to be dangerous violations of the Constitution, and subversive of the 
long-tried principles upon which experience had demonstrated that the se- 
curity of life, liberty, and property depends. Accordingly, the laws of 
1824-25 were repealed, and the former laws were revived, re-enacted, and 
declared to be in full force. 

Twelfth — Whatever may be thought of the policy of some of the acts of 
legislation passed during this exciting time of our history, it must be ad- 
mitted that Amos Kendall was right when he said, "The impartial historian 
will date from this period the origin of the noblest institutions which do 
honor to our State. A university regulated, a lunatic asylum established, 
a hospital for the sick and penniless erected, an asylum for the deaf and 
dumb called into existence, learning patronized, a foundation laid for a 
system of common schools, these, and many generous and noble acts of 
legislation are the fruitage of this era." 

Thirteenth — During this period, most of the noted land suits of the State 
were settled. The celebrated land-lawyers then reached the zenith of their 
fame — such as Hughes, Allen, Wickliffe, Rowan, Barry, Bibb, Blair, and 
others, who were the leading spirits in these suits. Judge Bibb, in the intro- 



LAW REGULATING TIPPLING-HOUSES. 739 

duction to his reports, speaking of the land law of the State and the decisions 
thereunder, has said : "In the history of this branch of our jurisprudence, 
if some oscillations in judicial decisions be remarked, they will be compara- 
tively few. Considering the complexity of the claims authorized by the act 
of 1779, the novelty of the scheme, and the ocean created for the judges to 
explore, a pleasing admiration is excited that a system of jurisprudence cre- 
ated by successive judicial decisions should have been brought to its present 
state of equity and justice without much greater clashing of decisions. The 
court has endeavored to place the landed property of the country upon as 
sure a foundation, and as nearly approaching to record evidence of title, as 
the nature of the claims would permit, avoiding as far as could be, to place 
points of controversy within the power of a solitary witness, paying a just 
regard to the importance of having the rules of property steady and uni- 
form, but yet not yielding passive obedience to precedent." 

Fourteenth — A local act of this period chartering the Elkhorn Navigation 
Company is evidence of the enthusiastic and visionary ideas upon the sub- 
ject of internal improvements which prevailed at the time. Large subscrip- 
tions were made by citizens of Fayette, Scott, and Woodford counties to the 
enterprise. A company was formed to lock and dam Elkhorn creek. The 
object was to carry off the produce of those counties to the Kentucky river. 
A large warehouse was erected at Lexington for the storage of produce in- 
tended for transportation on Elkhorn creek. It is needless to say the pro- 
ject ended in failure. 

Fifteenth — A law of this period, regulating and restraining the establish- 
ment of tippling-houses, contains a preamble drafted in 1820, which tells a 
bad story for these houses, as presented by their history up to this time. 
This preamble, in its recitals, shows that tippling-houses were institutions 
never contemplated by the laws of Kentucky; that they were then to be 
found in great plenty in every town, village, and neighborhood, throughout 
the State; that, in fact, the State was completely inundated with these en- 
gines of vice; that their influence was great on some portions of society; 
that industry was checked, purses were drained, constitutions were destroyed, 
families were disturbed, and citizens were demoralized. This period is 
noted for the rise and growth of many charitable institutions and business 
corporations — iron companies, manufacturing companies, hemp companies, 
steam mill companies, water companies, and two railroad charters, are 
among its productions in the way of legislation. It is especially rich in 
charters for the establishment of collegiate institutions. Centre College, 
Augusta College, Saint Joseph's College, all belong to this period. Then, 
too, Transylvania took its rise as a State university. Towns were springing 
up in all parts of the State, and many new counties were organized in the 
period under review. This carries us to the end of the period named. 

The Third Period of our local history begins at 1830 and ends with 
i860. 



740 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

The growth of the State during this time is apparent in its statutes. The 
appreciation of education, and the sentiment with regard to improvement 
in our roads and the navigation of our rivers, are manifest in the new laws 
upon the subject of common schools and internal improvements. The 
seminary system of education was cast aside. A law embodying some of 
the best points in the New York and New England common-school systems 
was adopted, in place of the old Virginia system. Turnpike roads and road 
companies were chartered in all parts of the State. The people became 
tired of hauling their produce and merchandise over the rough dirt roads 
then existing. The scenes of long trains of wagons running on the great 
highway from Maysville to Lexington, and other points of the State, had 
been witnessed long enough. The practice of relieving these trains by 
different wagoners joining their teams together, and then calling on the neighr 
bors to assist them out of the mud-holes, invoked the efforts of our statesmen 
to secure aid in this matter from the General Government. The bill to give 
government aid to the Maysville and Lexington turnpike was passed by 
Congress, but vetoed by President Monroe. The agitation on the subject 
of road and river improvements lasted until it forced the passage of a law 
by our General Assembly, for establishing a permanent system of internal 
improvements, and aiding navigation upon the largest streams of the State. 
The act was a remarkable specimen of log-rolling. It promised improve- 
ments on the roads in the three great sections of the State, and aid to nearly 
every river and creek, of considerable size, in the Commonwealth. It ulti- 
mately carried the State to the verge of bankruptcy, and secured but a small 
portion of the improvemj^^ls contemplated. It gave birth to our sinking- 
fund system in 1836, and led to the introduction of several important clauses 
in the Constitution of 1849. It led to the future protection of the public 
credit, by engrafting upon that constitution a prohibition of future State aid 
to internal improvements, without the assent of the people given at the 
polls. 

From this period we may date a strong growth in the pro-slavery senti- 
ment of the State. A statute made in 1833, prohibiting the importation of 
slaves into Kentucky, was at first quietly acquiesced in by the people; but 
when an effort was made to put its provisions into the Constitution of 1849, 
it led to a most exciting political discussion, and ended in placing in that 
instrument a more ultra pro-slavery clause than can perhaps be found in the 
constitution of any other Southern State. 

Other important alterations, during the period under review, were the 
exemption of a considerable amount of property from execution ; restraints 
put upon the rights of the husband in the real property of his wife; the pre- 
vention of fraudulent claims against decedents' estates, by requiring such 
claims to be properly verified; the permission to form limited partnerships; 
the corporation act; the law requiring payment for property destroyed by 
mobs; compensation for loss of life occasioned by negligence of railroads; 



• 



ENDING OF THIRD PERIOD. 741 



the extension of the rules of evidence to permit owners of lost baggage to 
testify in their own behalf; the liberality of sentiment which led to the adop- 
tion of the New York system of pleading and practice; the reformation of the 
County Courts; the change in the manner of electing judges, sheriffs, and mag- 
istrates; the liberality displayed to charitable and reformatory institutions; 
prohibition of betting on elections ; the act of 1 854, authorizing the geological 
survey of the State; the disposition to encourage fine arts, as shown in the 
law authorizing native artists to dispose of their pictures by lottery. These 
are some of the material alterations of the period considered. 

Aside from the foundation and establishment of the common-school sys- 
tem of the State, this period has been one of great progress in our collegiate 
and literary institutions. The well-known literary societies, in connection 
with some of our colleges, were founded then. The Deinologian Society of 
Center College, in 1837 ; the Tau Theta Kappa Society, of Georgetown Col- 
lege, in 1839; and the Ciceronian Society, of the same institution, in 1840. 

The organization and chartering of business corporations of all kinds, 
banks, railroads, insurance companies, and turnpikes, have been marked char- 
acteristics of this era. 

The additions to our revenue laws indicate a great step in the wealth 
and commerce of the State. The new items of taxation embrace gold and 
silver plate, gold and silver watches, barrels of corn, wheat, and barley, tons 
of iron ore in its different stages, not to be found on the assessor's books of 
either period preceding this. The equalization law of 1837 brings to the aid 
of the State a large residuary property not heretofore given in for taxation. 
The pervading spirit of equality and justice in this law did much to remove 
a previous reproach upon our revenue system. 

The laws known as the "revised statutes" gathered up the substantial 
points in all the previous revisions of our laws and put them into a con- 
nected whole. The work was executed by Squire Turner, S. S. Nicholas, 
and Charles A. Wickliffe, three of the ablest lawyers of the State. The new 
matter in this revision is mostly derived from the laws of Virginia, Massa- 
chusetts, and New York. This revision lasted until superseded by that of 
1873. Here ends the third period in our division. 

The Foxirth Period is now reached in the discussion of our subject. This 
era carries us through the stirring scenes of the civil war and down to the 
present date. It leads us through a period of great activity in railroad 
growth, banking operations, corporate development, intellectual and social 
progress. 

The period opens with the war legislation of the State, a peculiar class of 
laws, which has already passed away with the emergency which produced 
them. This legislation breathes a strong spirit of devotion to the Union. It 
displays also a sentiment of liberality and forbearance to the Confederates 
when the fortunes of war had gone against them. It is mild, compared with 
that of some of the States. 



742 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

For the chief laws to suppress the rebellion and aid the Union, we may- 
note the expatriation of all citizens entering the Confederate service, the 
vacating of the offices of all who went into the Southern army, making it a 
felony to join the rebels and invade the State, compelling disloyal persons 
to pay damages for injuries done to property. 

For acts of liberality to those in rebellion, we may refer to the laws par- 
doning all treason against the Commonwealth, granting universal amnesty 
for acts committed prior to October, 1865, the efforts made in behalf of a 
complete and early restoration of the States of the South to all their rights 
in the Union. 

The amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing 
slavery was not favored by Kentucky. The mode in which the requisite 
majority was secured for it was strongly condemned by the people of the 
State, This single amendment stripped the people of millions of money, 
without compensation, and swept from the statute-book our entire code of 
laws pertaining to slavery ; but the consequences of the amendment were 
accepted by the people in appropriate changes in their law in the matter of 
permitting negroes to testify and suitable provisions made by the establish- 
ment of the common-school system among the colored people. The results 
were cheerfully accepted even by the court of last resort, which decided in 
the case of the Commonwealth versus Johnson that the portion of our jury 
laws retaining the word "white" was unconstitutional. The negro is given 
the fullest protection in his life, liberty, and property. Under this protec- 
tion the property owned by the colored people in the State would probably 
reach five million of dollars. 

Late alterations in our laws of evidence tend to do away with the old 
rules upon the subject of competency, and to reduce all questions of the 
kind to issues of credibility. Persons interested in the result and parties to 
the record can testify in civil suits. The rule was not quite so liberal in 
criminal cases as to allow the defendant to testify in his own behalf, but 
the popular sentiment flowed strongly in that direction, and it has very 
recently become the law of the State. 

The statutory ameliorations of our criminal law are very great. The 
particulars will be found in the chapter upon crimes, in the revision of 
1873. Some features of our criminal jurisprudence, as developed by the 
courts, merit a passing notice. The judge is not allowed to instruct the jury 
at large by a running comment on the evidence, as is usual in the English 
courts. This practice is viewed by our law as dangerous to the rights and 
liberties of the citizen. 

The law of self-defense, in cases of homicide, has been pushed to the 
utmost limit, in some few of the rulings of the Appellate Court. This was 
especially true in the cases of Phillips versus the Commonwealth, decided 
in 1865; Carrico versus same, decided in 1870, and Bohannon versus same, 
decided in 1871. 



M 



AMENDMENTS TO OUR LAWS. 



743 



In Paris versus the Commonwealth, rendered in 1878, the Appellate Court 
overturned the usually accepted doctrine of implied malice, as a part of the 
law of the State. That case has been followed in a number of subsequent 
rulings. 

In 1864, in the case of Smith versus the Commonwealth, it was held by- 
Judge Robertson that drunkenness, brought on by sensual or social grati- 
fication, with no criminal intent, may reduce an unprovoked homicide from 
murder to manslaughter; and if transient insanity ensue, although it may 
not altogether excuse, it may mitigate the crime. This decision was subse- 
quently overruled by the Appellate Court in 1870. 

The defense of moral insanity has been pushed by the courts to an in- 
dulgent extent not sanctioned by many eminent common-law authorities. 
The plea of an irresistible impulse is accepted as an excuse for a criminal act. 

The growing temperance sentiment has made itself felt in the legislation 
of the times. A stringent local-option law has been passed, and the sale of 
liquor to inebriates forbidden universally. The divorce law has been so 
enlarged as to give the husband a divorce for drunkenness on the part of 
the wife. 

The evils incident to the growing power of railroads, in their extortions 
and discriminations in the matter of freight charges, have been met by strong 
legislative prohibitions, forbidding such preferences. A railroad commission 
has been established, and steps have been taken to secure the taxation of 
railroad property somewhat commensurate with its real value. 

The moral sentiments of the people have been consulted in the passage 
of laws prohibiting the circulation of obscene literature, and providing for 
liberty of conscience by permitting inmates of our reformatory institutions 
to select a minister or priest of their own religious persuasion. 

Increasing attention to the protection of the public against the effects of 
empiricism is manifested, by requiring physicians entering upon the prac- 
tice of medicine to bring some guarantee of suitable qualifications for the 
discharge of their responsible duties, either by the diploma obtained by 
graduation in some reputable school of medicine, or by a certificate obtained 
upon examination before a State board appointed for tke purpose. Pharma- 
cists and dentists are subjected to regulations somewhat similar in their 
character and object. 

The revenue laws of the State have always been defective ; but not less 
so in their modes of execution than in their substance. These laws have 
been made the subject of almost uniform complaint by our governors in 
their messages. For the last few years, they have not raised money suf- 
ficient to meet the current expenses of the State. The sinking fund has 
repeatedly been drawn upon to supply the deficiencies in this respect. The 
revenue law, as shown by the statutes of 1873, gives ample evidence of the 
growth of Kentucky for the last thirty years under review in mineral and 
agricultural products. 



744 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



The condition of married women under the statutes of Kentucky is much 
ameliorated, as compared with their status at the common law. Able reports 
upon the injustice of some portions of the common law to this class of our 
citizens have produced these changes. The Jejiwie sole act, recently become 
a part of our law, enables a married woman, under proper restrictions, to 
become a femme sole, and vests her with all rights of making wills, deeds, 
and contracts incidental to the unmarried condition of life. At the same. 
time, an act of justice has been done to the husband by relieving him of all 
responsibility for the ante-nuptial contracts of the wife where he gets nothing 
from the marriage. 

A strong desire to provide for insolvent debtors and their families, under 
proper restrictions and conditions, is manifested by the law of 1866, giving 
the debtor a homestead exemption, in real estate, to the amount of one 
thousand dollars. This landed exemption, supported as it is by laws pro- 
viding exemptions of personal property, with late amendatory additions of a 
liberal kind, gives about all that could be asked for this class of our citizens. 

The body of law as developed by the decisions of our Appellate and Su- 
perior Courts during the period now under treatment will compare favorably 
with that of our sister States. Many of these rulings have been of general 
interest to the country at large. They have been reported in all the standard 
legal journals of the country. 

These laws of the different periods, as thus passed under review, have 
been developed under three different State constitutions. Two of these have 
long outlived the average of the American State constitution. The first con- 
stitution of 1792 was largely pervaded by a spirit of distrust of the people, 
imbibed from the English law. The election of the governor and Senate 
was taken from the people and transferred to electors chosen by them. The 
right of suffrage as given by this Constitution was not made to depend on the 
possession of a freehold estate in land. This feature was a great step in ad- 
vance of the Constitution of the parent State of Virginia. 

Popular dissatisfaction with the provisions of the first constitution in re- 
gard to the mode of electing the governor and the Senate led to the forma- 
tion of the second constitution in 1799. This instrument went into operation 
in 1800 and remained in force fifty years, until 1850. It is said to be mainly 
the work of John Breckinridge. 

The debates upon this second constitution have, unfortunately, not been 
preserved. It is known that a fiery discussion arose in the convention on 
the question of making the Appellate Court independent of the Legislature. 
Some of the delegates were in favor of that court being under the control of 
the legislative body, as were the other courts of the Commonwealth. It was 
mainly through the instrumentality of Judge Caleb Wallace that it was made 
independent of legislative control. This constitution puts no property qual- 
ification upon the right of suffrage. The judges were appointed by the gov- 
ernor and held office during good behavior. This policy of appointment 



SKETCH OF GEORGE D. PRENTICE. 



745 



during good behavior may seem plausible, to be the better mode of securing 
purity and stability in the judiciary arm of our government, to the minds of 
many; yet there have been, and are, very able men who have as plausibly 
asserted and argued the advantages of an elective judiciary as provided in 
the succeeding constitution of 1850. The ablest presentation of the facts 
and arguments in favor of the latter resort may be found in a memorable 
speech of Ben Hardin on an occasion of historic interest. 

The third constitution, which took effect in 1850, removed all barriers 
on the direct exercise of popular sovereignty, and makes even the judges 
all elective by the people. Some of its distinctive features are the prohibi- 
tion of legislative aid to internal improvements. The public credit is 
sustained by rendering inviolable the revenues of the sinking fund, and re- 
quiring the faithful application of the fund to the payment of the public 
debt. The promotion and diffusion of knowledge is secured by the dedica- 
tion of the school fund to a system of public instruction in elementary 
schools. The personal, civil, and political rights of the citizen are declared 
and secured by an appropriate bill of rights, and by guarded limitations 
upon power. The instrument is the product of concession and compromise, 
and has secured for Kentucky the objects of a good constitution — the safety 
of life, liberty, and property. 

Editors of Kentucky. — George Denison Prentice, Kentucky's most famous 
journalist, wit, and poet, was born at Preston, Connecticut, December 18, 
1802; received a good classical education, and showed in early years that 
precocity which presaged his brilliant career as a writer. He studied law ; 
but entered journalism in Connecticut in 1825, and was associated with the 
poet Whittier, in 1S28-30, in publishing the New Efigla7id Weekly Revietv. 
He came to Kentucky in 1828, to write a campaign life of Henry Clay, and 

soon after located in Louisville and 
established the Journal, which he 
edited thirty-eight years. He made 
til is paper one of the most renowned 
in the land. It made and unmade 
poets, poetesses, essayists, journal- 
ists, and politicians, who appeared 
in the West, for over the third of a 
century. At the breaking out of 
the civil war, Mr. Prentice threw the 
whole weight of his powerful organ 
against the cause of secession, and 
for the preservation of the Union. 
In 1835, ^6 ^^'^s married to Miss 
Henrietta Benham, by whom he had 
GEORGE D. PRENTICE, two sons, William Courtland, who 

[Fro,,, an early />ahtti,:g ojv.,ed by the Polytechnic ^JH^ ■ ]^ ^^J ^ AugUSta, Kcn- 

Society of Kentucky. \ o ' 




746 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




WALTER N. HALDEMAN. 



tucky, and Clarence J., who lost 
hib life by being thrown from his 
buggy, near Louisville, in 1873. 
Mrs. Prentice died in 1868, and 

., her husband, January 21, 1870. 

I Walter N. Haldeman, presi- 
dent of the Courier-Journal Com- 

' pany, was born at Maysville, Ky., 

JJ't April 27, 1821, and educated at 

h:i ''i . 

^■'i''||ji IMaysville Academy, along with 

"'''■■ U. S. Grant, W. H. Wadsworth, 
T. H. Nelson, R. H. Collins, 
and others of note. In 1840, he 
became book-keeper in the Louis- 
ville yi??/;-;/^/ office ; in 1844, he 
started the Daily Dime paper, 
soon converted into the Morning 
Courier, which he conducted suc- 
cessfully until 1 86 1, when it was 
suppressed by military domina- 
tion. It reappeared soon at Nashville, and at other points in the Confeder- 
acy, after. At the close of the war, in 1865, Mr. Haldeman resumed the 
publication of the Courier in Louisville, with marked success, until 1868, 
when, in concert with Henry Watterson, of the Journal, the two dailies were 
blended, and appeared as the Courier-Journal, which has since been the 
leading paper of the South, under the same management. The Louisville 
Democrat was soon also absorbed into this combination. The Courier-Journal 
building is the finest newspaper edifice west of the Alleghanies, completed 
in 1876. Mr. Haldeman is a man of most versatile, but practical, talents, 
and endowed with remarkable energy, persistency, and sagacity in business 
venture. His life has been a series of marvelous successes, often under the 
frowns of discouragement. 

Hon. Henry Watterson was born in Washington City, February 16, 1840, 
and was well educated, mainly under private tutors. He began his literary 
and editorial career in New York and Washington until the civil war. Cast- 
ing his fortunes with the South, he edited the Nashville Banner, afterward 
the Rebel, at Chattanooga. After the war, he returned to the Banner, vis- 
ited Europe in 1866, and on his return became editor of the Louisville 
Journal,- dOidi finally of the Courier Journal, after the consolidation, and yet 
holds that position. He was elected to Congress in 1876, in which year he 
was mainly instrumental in the nomination of Tilden for the presidency. 
Mr. Watterson is distinguished for his brilliancy and elegance as a writer 
and speaker, and has proved himself an adroit and powerful political leader 
for the last twenty years. His defective eyesight greatly interfered with his 



EDITORS OF KENTUCKY. 



747 





Studies in youth, and gave a 
desultory cast to his education. 
He began, at nineteen, a regular 
writer on the States, a Demo- 
cratic paper of Washington City. 
Next, he became editorial mana- 
ger of the Democratic J^evietv, U < 
the breaking out of the war. In 
1865, he was married to Miss 
Rebecca Ewing, of Tennessee, 
a daughter of the Hon. Andrew 
Ewing. 

Emmett Garvin Logan, editor 
of the Louisville Evening Times, 
was born in Shelby county, Ken- 
tucky, October 9, 1848; attended 
"old field" schools in winter, 
and worked on a farm in sum- 
mer, until eighteen years of age ; 
attended Professor J. W. Dodd's Classical School, in Shelbyville, for three 
years; then Washington University, Lexington, Virginia, under the presi- 
dency of General Robert E. Lee ; was one of the guard of honor to conduct 
the burial services at his death ; was elected editor of the college paper ; re- 
turned to Kentucky, and established the Shelby Courant ; afterward accepted 
a position on the editorial staff of the Courier- Journal, taking charge of the 
Kentucky and Southern news department, and making it a decided feature 
of the paper, the originality, the brilliancy, and wit of his writings being 

everywhere recognized. Joining with 
Governor Underwood and Colonel E. 
Polk Johnson in the publication of 
the Intelligencer, at Bowling Green, 
for a time, he was soon recalled to 
take charge as managing editor of the 
Courier-Journal, writing many of the 
leading editorials of that day. In 
1882, when Governor Underwood es- 
tablished the Cincinnati Neivs, Mr. 
Logan was selected as the managing 
editor, at a liberal salary. Under his 
leadership, that paper became a main 
factor of political power in Ohio, es- 
pecially in aid of the election of Gov- 
ernor Hoadly. In 1884, he joined 
EMMETT G. LOGAN. with Colonel E. Polk Johnson again, 




748 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



in the establishment of the Evening Times, and which he yet continues to 
edit with abiHty and brilliancy. Mr. Logan is gifted as a versatile and 
ready writer, and especially for the terse, piquant, and pungent style which 
has marked his individuality as an editor. 

Colonel Robert Morrison Kelly was born at Paris, Kentucky, Septem- 
ber 2 2, 1836, and educated in the schools of Paris and vicinity. Here he 

taught school two years, and two 
years more in Owingsville Academy. 
Studied law under Hon. J. Smith 
Hurtt, and opened an office for the 
practice at the county-seat of Bath 
county. In i860, he removed to 
Cynthiana and formed a partnership 
with Garrett Davis, his uncle by 
marriage. In 1861, he entered the 
Federal army as captain of a company 
in the Fourth Kentucky infantry, 
inder Colonel Smith S. Fry ; was 
\ romoted to be major, lieutenant- 
olonel, and colonel, successively, to 
October, 1864, ^i^d mustered out 
^ jptember i, 1865, after over four 
\ ;ars of service. In 1866, he was 
ippointed collector of internal rev- 
enue for the Seventh district, with 
office at Lexington. Resigned in 
1869, to take the editorial control of the Louisville Cofnmerdal. In 1873, 
he was appointed pension agent by President Grant, which office he in time 
vacated and transferred to his successor. General Don Carlos Buell, March, 
1886, resuming editorial charge of the Commercial. 

Kentucky has been as fruitful in the production of editors of talent 
who have won distinction in their day, and wielded a power that, perhaps 
more than any other one agency, shaped the parties and governments of the 
country, both Federal and State, as her sister commonwealths. We might 
add to the list such men as Bradford, Wickliffe, Penn, Harney, and a host 
of others, did the occasion admit. It may justly be said that the editorial 
profession has shown itself worthy of encomium in the faithfulness with 
which it has performed its duty as an educator of the people. Indeed, it 
is an important factor in the educational forces, ceaselessly at work in the 
great cause of human enlightenment. 




COLONEL R08EKT Wl. KELLY, 



FROM 1865 TO 1886. 



749 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

(1S65-S6.) 



The assassination of President Lincoln. 

Electric effect. 

Estimate of friends and foes of his char- 
acter. 

Union party divides. 

Military interference at the polls. 

Officials elected in 1865-66. 

Illegal elections. 

Prosecutions for military interference. 

Designs to subject Kentucky to military 
rule. 

Union men prevent. 

General Palmer's rule. 

General Brisbin's interference with the 
slaves. 

Judge Andrews' decision. 

Thirteenth amendment ratified. 

Habeas corpus restored. 

One hundred and fifty million dollars 
in slave property lost. 

Amnesty legislation. 

Magnanimity of the Union men. 

Freedmen's bureau. 

Carpet-baggers. 

Their corruptions and outrages. 

Struggle between the civil and military 
authorities. 

Quick restoration of peace and quiet in 
Kentucky. 

Anarchy and ruin in the South from 
Federal military interference. 

Kentucky's war finances. 

Financial exhibit in 1865. 

High State credit. 

William Preston. 

Election of several officials of the Ap- 
pellate Court. 

Carpet-bag rule odious to Union men of 
Kentucky. 

Election of congressmen and State offi- 
cials in 1867. 

John L. Helm. 

Third party. 



Jarnes W. Tate. 

Seceded States should have reconstruct- 
ed as readily as Kentucky. 

Post-bellum condition. 

Reorganization of the Democratic 
party. 

John W. Stevenson. 

State finances in 1S67. 

" Regulators." 

Kentucky congressmen are denied their 
seats. 

James B. Beck. 

Governor Stevenson's message. 

Finances, revenue, education, peniten- 
tiary, Federal relations, treated. 

Elections by Legislature. 

Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments 
adopted. 

Negro testimony admitted. 

Colored schools provided for. 

P. H. Leslie. 

Elected to preside over the Senate. 

Governor Stevenson is elected United 
States senator. 

Leslie governor. 

Elected governor for fouryears, in 1871. 

John G. Carlisle, lieutenant-governor. 

Party nominees. 

Negroes vote in State election. 

William O. Bradley. 

Republican declarations. 

William Lindsay. 

Message of Governor Leslie. 

Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington 
railroad sold. 

Norvin Green. 

Federal courts withdraw jurisdiction on 
the admission of negro testimony in the 
State courts. 

Appellate bench changes. 

Milton J. Durham. 

Geological survey. 

Anti-Ku-Klux laws. 



750 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Joseph C. S. Blackburn. 

Responsibility of judges. 

Panic of 1873. 

The act of 1873-74 establishing colored 
schools. 

State elections. 

Governor James B. McCreary. 

His message. 

Sale of State turnpike stock confirmed 
by the courts. 

Bureau of agriculture. 

Election of James B. Beck and John S. 
Williams, United States senators. 

Albert S. Willis. 

Presidential election, 1876. 

Tilden elected and Hayes counted in. 

Bargain to withdraw carpet-bag rule 
from the South. 

John M. Harlan on tlie United States 
Supreme bench. 

Judges Hines and Lewis elected to the 
Appellate bench. 

Luke P. Blackburn is elected gov- 
ernor. 

His message. 

Walter Evans. 

Appointed commissioner of internal 
revenue. 

Presidential election, 1880. 



Assassination of President Garfield, 

Superior court created. 

The tragedy. 

Neal and Craft murders and trials. 

Congressmen-elect in 1882. 

State election, 1883. 

J. Proctor Knott. 

His message. 

Defective revenue laws. 

Auditor suggests reforms. 

State educational conventions. 

Good school laws enacted, 1883-84, for 
white and colored. 

Vote on the question of a new Consti- 
tution. 

New penitentiary ordered built at Ed- 
dyville. 

Temperance reform. 

Gambling made a felony. 

Benevolent institutions. 

Presidential election. 

President Cleveland's appointments in 
Kentucky. 

Sudden death of Vice-President Hen- 
dricks. 

His successor. 

Present Kentucky congressmen. 

Live State questions. 

Present finances. 



In the very midst of the surrenders which gave token of assured peace, 
and before the reverberations of the last artillery had died away, the last 
drum-beat of the war heard, and the last flag furled to rest, the rent and 
divided nation was shocked with the news of one of the most revolting and 
unfortunate tragedies that history records of any age. On the 14th day of 
April, 1865, five days after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, President 
Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater, Washington City, by a pistol- 
shot in the head, at the hands of J. Wilkes Booth, the actor. The event 
thrilled every section of the country with a consternation and horror such 
as were never before felt upon the Western Continent. The laurel wreath 
of victory over the great rebellion was woven and ready to be placed upon 
his brow, crowning him with honors and fame unsurpassed by those con- 
ferred upon any man of ancient or modern times. His obscure and mys- 
terious birth, the poverty and privations of his infancy, the struggles and 
discouragements of his backwoods boyhood and youth, the splendid 
manhood wrought out of all these experiences by indomitable purpose and 
inflexible principle, the pubHc recognition of his virtues and worth, his call 
to liberate five million human beings from bondage, and to lead the nation 



LINCOLN S DEATH A CALAMITY TO THE SOUTH. 751 

«afely through deliverance from a mighty rebellion, the triumphal honors 
ready to be conferred by grateful millions, the bloody assassination at the 
very point of culmination of a marvelous career — all, together, complete 
the picture of a life of romance, beside which fiction fades into tame insig- 
nificance. The true attributes of Mr. Lincoln's character had by this time 
■come to be understood and appreciated by foes as well as by friends. His 
simplicity of spirit and ingenuous nature were unaffected by the artificial 
surroundings of official exaltation. His loyal homage to his convictions 
and the intense sincerity of his nature exposed to public view the motives 
of his actions and administration. The sternness of resolution with which 
he executed the inexorable laws and military decrees of a revolutionary 
period was mitigated in the tenderness of a sympathy and concern he often 
expressed toward the people who had arisen in rebellion against his author- 
ity. The wise and flexible discretion with which he gave audience and 
heed to the counsels of others, while holding supreme mastery of the situ- 
ation of authority with marvelous judgment and skill, had fully marked 
him as one of the most sagacious statesmen of the age. The solicitous 
overtures to win back to submission the defiant and hostile people, and to 
reimburse for the loss of slave property as far as public sentiment and 
policy would admit, and stay the shedding of blood, were not forgotten to 
the memory of those now subdued by the issue of war. The manly sym- 
pathy and humane expressions toward the vanquished rebels on the sur- 
render of Lee led the people of the South to hope for generous terms and 
treatment at his command. 

For many obvious reasons, the death of President Lincoln at such a 
crisis in the affairs of the nation was accepted as a common calamity to the 
country, but more to be deplored by the people of the South than by those 
of the North. If he had been the open enemy of the former, his character 
and conduct throughout the trial period of responsibility had extorted from 
them respect for his integrity of motive and admiration for the qualities of 
manhood that forgot not to be generous and kind to a fallen foe. It was now 
feared that, by his death, the processes of a return of the seceded States to 
the Union, of the reconstruction of their governments, and of a restoration 
of equal civil rights to all, would be more obstructed and difficult — a fear 
that was too sensibly realized in years after. The South could better have 
lost any other man. 

The war was over, but there remained in Kentucky, as in all other por- 
tions of the country, a class of men in both military and civil offices, with 
their mercenary dependents, whose interests and dispositions were to keep 
up an appearance of strife and danger, and thus to continue the exercise of 
the war power, seemingly more from passion or interested motives than for 
the peace and order of good government. The Southern rights element 
were disposed to be passive for the time, while the majority of the Union 
party lent their support to a full restoration of civil rights to these and a 



752 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

complete return of unobstructed civil authority over the military. The 
result of this state of affairs was to force an issue which divided the Union 
party into the Conservative and Radical wings. At the August election, 
James H. Garrard (Conservative) was elected State treasurer over William 
L. Neale (Radical). The Senate stood twenty Conservative and eighteen 
Radical, and the House sixty Conservative and forty Radical. With Gov- 
ernor Bramlette, the State government was fairly and fortunately Conserva- 
tive. The executive, legislative and judicial departments were in accord in 
the sentiment and expression to subordinate the military to the civil arm 
of government once more. But the machinery of the State government 
was not in a condition to operate smoothly as yet, whatever may have been 
the good intentions. 

On the nth of March, 1862, the Legislature had passed the expatriation 
act, requiring that every person who came to the polls to vote should state 
on oath ' ' that he has not entered into the service of the Confederate States, nor 
of the so-called provisional government of Kentucky^ in either a civil or military 
capacity " eic. This law had not been repealed ; therefore, Governor Bram- 
lette, on the 22d of July, 1865, preceding the election in August, issued 
his proclamation to the officers of elections and citizens that it must be 
enforced. Though it was offered in apology that this would leave the soldiery 
without any excuse for interfering with this election, the governor was 
severely censured for his proclamation. The act had been declared uncon- 
stitutional by Judges Joseph Doniphan and Richard Apperson, in their 
respective circuits ; and now that the war was over and peace restored, it 
was generally thought that it was an unwarranted exercise of authority on 
the part of the executive. Besides, it seemed to have the opposite effect 
from that intended, as it was rather interpreted as a license by military 
officials to interfere with the voting at many places, and so much so as to 
probably affect the result in some districts. 

The election for representatives in Congress came off at the same time 
in August with that of legislators and State treasurer. The results were 
that of the Conservative candidates there were elected in the First district, 
L. S. Trimble; in the Second, B. C. Ritter; in the Third, Henry Grider; 
in the Fourth, A. Harding, and in the Seventh, G. S. Shanklin. Of 
the Radical candidates, there were elected, in the Fifth district, L. H. 
Rousseau ; in the Sixth, G. C. Smith ; in the Eighth, W. H. Randall, 
and in the Ninth, S. McKee. It would be but conjecture to express an 
opinion as to whether the result in any case of the above would have 
been different in the absence of military or other interference with the 
freedom of suffrage, certainly not in more than two, if in these. There 
were a number of indictments by grand juries throughout the State for 
such unlawful interference, and these were made quite annoying and 
expensive to the petty military officials who so perverted their callings as 
to engage in such practices. 



INTERFERING WITH VOTERS. 753 

In the November Circuit Court at Cynthiana, S. F. January recovered 
five thousand dollars, and J. R. Curry five hundred dollars, damages against 
Captain Cranston, for interfering with their right to vote. For similar 
interferences with voters at Alexandria, Campbell county, attended with 
arrests and inhuman treatment, by Captain J. W, Read, of the Fifty-fifih 
Kentucky, he was fined four thousand dollars, and Captain J. H. Lennin, 
of the Fifty-third Kentucky, five hundred dollars, and, being unable to 
pay, they were cast into jail. Other indictments were made, but in a 
number of instances the prosecution was not followed up. In February, 
1866, the Legislature declared vacant, on account of such illegal inter- 
ferences, the seats of Dr. A. Sidney Allen, R. Tarvin Baker, M. M. Ben- 
ton and L. B. Goggin, of the Senate ; and of Representatives Ballew, L. 
Barber, U. P. Degman, J. Hawthorn, R. Gregory, J. Wilson, J. Stroube 
and D. Murphy, and ordered new elections to be held to fill the vacancies 
in a lawful manner. These proceedings on the part of the Union civil 
authorities had a most salutary effect upon that characteristic class, who 
had discreetly and adroitly survived the perils and period of war ; but who 
were, on the restoration of peace, most reluctant to permit the privileges of 
military license to slip from their fingers. Their day of abused power and 
factitious importance was evidently very nigh to its sunset, to their own 
discomfiture, and to the joy of a grateful people. 

It was the desire and intention to subject Kentucky and other border 
Union States to the same visitation of carpet-bag domination, for riotous 
rule and spoliation, on the part of some of this vulture class who so freely 
plundered eleven secession States. But the effort was feeble and abortive. 
The great mass of the Union men were themselves prompt and resolute to 
resist any such corrupt invasion of the integrity of Kentucky sovereignty. 
Indeed, there were but few native Kentuckians to be found in any party 
who would countenance such an attempt at the deliverance of power to an 
unworthy and disreputable set of adventurers. The whole people of the 
State, therefore, owe a debt of gratitude to the Union party for the honor- 
able and patriotic resistance and defeat of the insidious purpose, and the 
early restoration of civil order. 

General John M. Palmer, who had succeeded General Burbridge, was 
in command of the Kentucky department at the close of the war, and proved 
himself to be a man of fair impulses and moderation, in the main ; yet, sur- 
rounded by the conflicting and varying influences of the hour, he was occa- 
sionally betrayed into some measures and acts of frivolous and petty tyranny. 
In April, he issued an order guaranteeing protection to all Confederate 
soldiers returning and remaining peaceably at home, of which many availed 
themselves. Another order forbade the arrest of any except real offenders. 
In May, he disbanded all the independent Federal scouts. In October, on 
his recommendation, four thousand colored troops then in Kentucky were 
mustered out, leaving about six thousand yet in service in the State. It was 

45 



754 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

not until May, that the enlistment of negro troops was discontinued; and 
this unnecessary continuance of enlistment was with a purpose not of mili- 
tary necessity. Indeed, the most puerile, annoying and obnoxious acts of 
General Palmer grew out of a seeming nervous and uncontrollable dispo- 
sition to intermeddle with the frail tenure of relation yet remaining between 
masters and slaves, and to aid and incite the colored people to every effort 
toward effecting general emancipation from the skeleton of slavery, which 
was already doomed to an early extinction. 

Until the order of May 8th came from the war department to discontinue 
the enlistment of negro troops, there were a number of Federal officers who 
made themselves gratuitously officious in this work of supererogation, prin- 
cipal among whom was General Brisbin. In a letter to Governor Bramlette, 
of April 2 2d, he boasted that " negro enlistments had bankrupted slavery 
in Kentucky, over twenty-two thousand valuable slaves having gone into the 
service. Nearly one hundred are yet enlisted daily, freeing, according to 
the law of Congress, March 3, 1865, an average of five women and children 
to each man. Thus some four hundred black people are daily made free 
through this instrumentality." General Palmer lent other aid to the work 
of emancipation. By his orders, thousands of passes were issued to negroes 
over the ferry at Louisville, and over the railroad to Cincinnati, from 
Central Kentucky, to encourage and enable them to escape from any claims 
of ownership by their masters. Many petty conflicts and annoyances grew 
out of these proceedings. In the Carlisle Circuit Court, Judge L. Wat 
Andrews had decided unconstitutional the late act of Congress liberating 
the wives and children of enlisted negro soldiers, a decision confirmed by 
the Court of Appeals in December following. Generals Palmer and Brisbin 
were indicted in Louisville, "for abducting slaves and otherwise violating 
the slave code of Kentucky," and the former was placed under bond for 
five hundred dollars. 

On the 8th of December, Secretary Seward issued a proclamation that 
the requisite constitutional three-fourths of the States had ratified the 
thirteenth amendment, that " neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
should any longer exist in the United States, and that the same was now a 
part of the United States Constitution." This was the end of the institu- 
tion, and all pretext for any future conflict, as to any rights existing in the 
relation of master and slave, was forever removed. In March, 1866, 
General Palmer resigned his commission as commander of the District of 
Kentucky, and, no doubt, to the mutual satisfaction of himself and the 
people. In course of time, the restoration of the writ of habeas corptis, 
which had been made to the States of Maryland, Delaware, West Vir- 
ginia and Missouri, but withheld from Kentucky, was extended to the 
latter, and did much to restore civil authority to its legitimate jurisdiction. 
The " peculiar institution " rapidly disappeared, after many months of dis- 
integration, losing to Kentucky about one hundred and fifty million dollars 



THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 755 

of property in slaves, for which the Commonwealth has never asked or 
received any reimbursement. 

On its assembling in December, the Legislature enacted a law of general 
pardon to all persons indicted by the courts of Kentucky for treason against 
the Federal government through acts done within the State. It repealed 
the act of October i, i86r, declaring any citizen who invaded Kentucky as 
a Confederate soldier guilty of felony, to be punished by confinement in 
the penitentiary from one to ten years; also the expatriation act of March 
II, 1862, and the act requiring ministers and others to take the oath of 
loyalty before solemnizing marriage, and another requiring a similar oath 
from jurors. Thus, one by one, every obstacle to restoration to civil rights 
and reconciliation which had grown up out of war measures was removed. 
The policy was one of manly magnanimity on the part of the Unionists in 
power toward their old neighbors, kindred and companions in citizenship. 
The confidence of intimacy assured those in authority that, though differing 
to opposite extremes as to the choice between the Federal or Confederate 
side in the great war issue, their less fortunate brethren of the Common- 
wealth were not less honest, sincere and brave than themselves ; nor were 
they less to be trusted on their return from the surrenders of the war, in the 
good faith with which they grounded the arms of rebellious strife forever 
and resumed the functions and duties of loyal citizenship under the flag of 
the Union. 

Another mischievous institution which was established with impertinent 
intrusion in Kentucky, and which became very obnoxious and irritating to 
the great mass of both parties, was the Freedmen's Bureau. Basing its 
right to existence on the plea that the people of Kentucky, a State that 
had been steadily loyal, and which had sacrificed as much to sustain the 
Union as any other, were not qualified or competent to manage their own 
internal affairs, a plea insulting to their intelligence and integrity, it received 
but the merited condemnation and indignant protest of the better citizen- 
ship entire, who desired a return of peace and good order without these 
ill-graced reminders of war and strife. The Freedmen's Bureau assumed a 
sort of stepmotherly care over the colored population, so recently and so 
abruptly released from inherited bondage and suddenly possessed of an abso- 
lute freedom to do as they might will. The bureau itself seemed an out- 
growth and expedient of the inordinate desire of a certain class of govern- 
mental dependents, who, fearing their occupation gone with the cessation 
of all strife, sought every method to continue a ruie of militarism that 
would perpetuate themselves in power at the expense of the Federal treas- 
ury. The more patriotic and substantial soldiery and officials had returned 
to the honest occupations and industries of private life. The bureau men 
were the shifting adventurers who are ever ready to speculate on the oppor- 
tunities of the hour without regard or scruple for the character of their work 
or the methods by which they accomolish it. They were of kinship to the 



7S6 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




GENERAL WILLIAWl PRESTON. 



carpet-bag fraternity — the parasitic growth of moral scavenger and spoiler 
which seems to have ever dormant germ-life in the body politic, but which 
needs the miasmatic and foul atmosphere of conflict and chaos in times of 
strife to quicken into vermin form and function, and to swarm and thrive 
on the refuse and waste of corruption 
until they disappear again under the 
sunshine of restored order, prosper- 
ity, and happiness. These petty and 
pestiferous officials assumed patron- 
izing guardianship of the freed men, 
women, and children, to dictate and 
control the wages and terms on which 
they might be employed by the whites, 
to adjust difficulties between the two 
races, and to incite and encourage 
prosecutions against the whites for any 
grievances the negroes might allege. 
The effect was to delude the ignorant 
negroes into impossible expectations 
and cruel disappointments, and to 
waste months and years in idleness 
and in illusions of support and protec- 
tion in such a state, at a time when the whites were wanting their servicer 
at fair wages. There was no one greater obstruction to restored industry 
and gain after the war than this politico-military monstrosity termed the 
"Freedmen's Bureau," and its mischievous results were tenfold greater in 
the seceded States than in Kentucky, 

Of this transition period from anarchy toward reconstruction, Mr. Shaler, 
from his standpoint, says: i"The conduct of the Republicans in regard lo 
the civil rights of the State, the disgust arising from the emancipation of 
slaves without compensation to loyal owners, the acts of the Freedmen's 
Bureau, and other proceedings hostile to the governmental integrity of the 
State, arrayed an overwhelming majority of the people on the Democratic, 
which was then the Conservative, side. 

"The result of this strenuous, though orderly, struggle of the State 
authorities, with the excess of the military spirit and the wild and malicious 
legislation of the Republican Congress, was to drive the State into intense 
political antagonism to the party that had the control of the Government. 
This has unjustly been assumed to prove the esseritial sympathy of the Ken- 
tucky people with the Southern cause. All conversant with the inner history 
of Kentucky will not fail to see the error of this idea. The truest soldiers 
to the Union cause were the leaders in antagonism to the militarism that was 
forced on them, such as Bramlette, Jacob, Wolford, and a host like them,. 

1 Shaler's Kentucky Commonwealth, pp. 385-86. 



FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE STATE. 757 

who were ready to battle with one hand against the rebeUion, and with the 
other to combat for the life of the civil law. While the Republican party in 
Congress was led by men who knew nothing of war, and who were rather 
enriched or benefited by its continuance, this people, with the battle about 
their firesides, had a double combat to wage. That they did not falter in 
either duty is much to their credit. When the war ended, therefore, the 
parties in Kentucky were reorganized on new lines. 

' ' Perhaps the most satisfactory feature in the close of the civil war was 
the really quick restoration of civil order in the State, and the perfect 
reunion of the divided people. In this course the people of Kentucky set 
an excellent, but unheeded, example to the Federal Government. By this 
action they avoided having a large part of their citizens parted in spirit from 
the life and work of the Commonwealth. The historian and true statesman 
will always admire this episode of reconciliation. The effect is since seen 
in the wiping-outof enmity that came to the whole country after the deplor- 
able reconstruction troubles of the South. In Kentucky, it came at once ; 
there was no torturing and persecuting period of doubt, no hesitation in the 
return of peace, no gendering of hatreds, as farther South." 

Just as easily and quickly might civil order, loyal submission, and com- 
plete reconciliation have been restored in every seceded State, had the Fed- 
eral administration and Congress, with wise statesmanship and exalted 
manhood, extended toward them the same policy of restoration that was 
happily enforced in Kentucky, instead of the miscaWed reco/isfrucii'on meas- 
ures of carpet-bag rapacity and Freedmen's Bureau intrusions, which for 
more than ten years spread material and political ruin over an impoverished 
and prostrate people. The conservative Union party of Kentucky found 
the opportunity to show that if they resisted the rebellion that would destroy 
the Union they venerated, no less did they repudiate and condemn the 
usurpation that would wreak its vengeance, and practice its wrongs and 
extortions, upon any part of the citizenship who had sought an honest 
refuge under the grateful shadows of the sovereignty of the Commonwealth. 

Pending the war, and to January i, 1866, Kentucky borrowed $4,095, - 
314, for war purposes. During the same time she disbursed $3,331,077 
for said purposes, and refunded to banks, of money borrowed, $661,941. 
A balance of $81,051, due from quartermasters and others, and $21,245, 
cash on hand, made up the amount borrowed. The outstanding claims 
against the military department were $100,491 ; balance due banks, 
$2,601,585; balance due Kentucky by the United States Government 
for advances, $2,438,347. The most of the latter due has been collected 
by the State. 

The financial credit and condition of the State were fortunately maintained 
throughout the four years of war, with an ability and integrity of manage- 
ment equal to other periods of its history, and inferior to that of no other 
Commonwealth of the Federal Union at the time. At the outset of the 



758 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

war, the report of the auditor showed that the State was owing $4, 729,234; 
of this, $1,381,832 was the "school fund "proper, and $316,884, the 
"county-school fund," due for unexpended balances in the counties. For 
the I St of January, 1865, Auditor W. T. Samuels reported the indebted- 
ness of the State chargeable to the sinking fund $5,284,037 ; and for credit 
on the same, cash assets, $1,017,192; leaving a balance of $4,266,845. 
The State held assets to meet this indebtedness $4,830,475, in turnpike and 
navigation stocks, and $1,562,819, in bank and railroad stocks, worth, prox- 
imately, $2,500,000. The credit of the State was maintained at a proximate 
standard of par throughout the belligerent period; and there was no time 
of the desolating and sanguinary strife, that the Commonwealth was not 
able to borrow all the money it needed, at a reasonable rate of interest. In 
singular contrast to this admirable State credit, was the credit of the United 
States Government, which for years negotiated its six per cent, bonds with 
embarrassing delays and difficulties, upon both the home and foreign mar- 
kets, and with discouraging results ; whose issued currency had sunk as 
low as two hundred per cent, beneath par value, and was, long after the 
restoration of peace, offered in exchange for coin at a discount of fifty per 
cent. There were no better indices to the real state of popular opinion 
and confidence as to the issue of the great civil war, than the vibration of 
the financial pulse in response to its alternating phases. 

On May 29, 1865, Judge Joshua F. Bullitt, for reasons of alleged dis- 
loyalty set forth, was removed by address by the Legislature from his seat 
on the Appellate bench, and on June 5th Governor Bramlette appointed to 
the vacancy Judge William Sampson, of Glasgow, who was regularly elected 
to the same office in August after. Judge Sampson dying on February 5, 
1866, Judge Thomas A. Marshall was appointed to the temporary vacancy, 
until the first Monday in August following, when Judge M. R. Hardin was 
elected to serve out the remainder of the term. At this election the last 
forlorn struggle was made to enforce military or other party violence, and 
many incidents of strife occurred, resulting in the killing at the polls of 
some twenty persons throughout the State. Judge Alvin Duvall was elected 
clerk of the Court of Appeals, over General E. H. Hobson, the Republican 
candidate, and a model of the many brave, honorable, and able men of 
Kentucky, who gave their services to the Union cause, without condition 
or compromise. 

At the opening of the year 1867, it was very obvious that the conserva- 
tive men of the Union party, forming, perhaps, a majority of the same, had 
become alienated and intensely hostile to the Republican administration, 
beginning as far back as 1863, under President Lincoln, and continuing 
through the indefinite future. The persistent subordination of the civil 
authorities to the domination of military or martial law ; the executions 
resulting from this armed license ; the reign of terror inaugurated by cruel 
and corrupt commandants of the district; the abrupt proclamation of eman- 



COMPARISON OF VOTES. 759 

cipation ; the adoption of the constitutional amendment liberating all slaves, 
without compensation even to loyal owners in a loyal State ; the attempt, 
after the war ceased, to dismantle the State government, and to force on 
the people the odious carpet-bag rule; the establishment in the State of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, etc., were interpreted by these Union men, who had 
largely led the Federal cause through the darkest days of its perils and 
despair, as the wanton infliction of indignities, injuries, and insults, which 
were not only needless and inexcusable, but cruel and ungrateful. So 
intense were the feelings of resentment in the loyal masses of Kentucky that 
an irreconcilable division occurred at the termination of the war, within 
the ranks of these masses themselves, the Radical element supporting the 
main policy of the Federal administration, and the Conservative opposing. 
The latter avowed that they had been misled and betrayed by the earlier 
assurances of the Government, and this asserted breach of faith added to 
the bitterness of their opposition. 

In 1867, the first elections for congressmen and State officers were to be 
held since the close of hostilities. For the first time, general disabilities and 
difficulties were removed from citizens who had returned from Confederate 
service, and these were permitted the full exercise of the right of suffrage, 
and of holding offices of state. They were not diffident or dilatory in 
coming forward to assert these rights. On the 4th of May, a special elec- 
tion for congressmen was held throughout the State, resulting in a vote of 
9,787 for L. S. Trimble, Democrat, and 1,780 for G. G. Symmes, Union, 
in the First district; John Young Brown, Democrat, 8,922, B. C. Ritter, 
Union Democrat, 1,155, and S. E. Smith, Union, 2,816, in the Second; 
E. Hise, Democrat, 7,740, and G. D. Blakey, Union, 1,201, in the Third; 
J. Proctor Knott, Democrat, 8,199, ^^- J- Heady, Union Democrat, 508, 
and M. C. Taylor, Union, 2,277, i" the Fourth; A. P. Grover, Democrat, 
7,118, R. T. Jacob, Union Democrat, 2,417, and W. A. Bullitt, Union, 742, 
in the Fifth ; Thomas L. Jones, Democrat, 9,488, and W. S. Rankin, Union, 
3,839, in the Sixth; James B. Beck, Democrat, 9,716, C. S. Hanson, Union 
Democrat, 1,388, and William Brown, Union, 1,664, 'i^ the Seventh; George 
M. Adams, Democrat, 7,690, and M. J. Rice, Union, 7,175, in the Eighth; 
and John D. Young, Democrat, 9,042, T. M. Green, Union Democrat, 862, 
and S. McKee, Union, 7,563, in the Ninth. 

On the 5lh of August, at the regular election for State officers, John L, 
Helm, Democrat, for governor, received 90,225 votes; W. B. Kinkead, 
Union Democrat, 13,167; S. M. Barnes, Republican, 33,939; Helm's ma- 
jority over Barnes, 56,286, and over Kinkead, 77,058. By about the same 
vote, John W. Stevenson was elected lieutenant-governor, over H. Taylor 
and R. Tarvin Baker; John Rodman, attorney-general, over John M, Har- 
lan and John Mason Brown; D. Howard Smith, auditor, over J. Smith 
Hurtt and Silas Adams ; J. W. Tate, treasurer, over Alfred Allen and M. J. 
Roark; James A. Dawson, register of the land office, over J. J. Craddock 



760 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




GOVERNOR JOHN L. HELM. 



and J. M. Fiddler; and Z. F. Smith, superintendent of public instruction, 
over B. M. Harney and D. Stevenson. 

These elections determined the status of political parties from 1867 to 
the present day. The feeble party passed away, and appeared no more. 
It became evident that there was no mid- 
dle ground to be occupied between the 
old Democratic party contending for an 
administration of the Federal Govern- 
ment literally within constitutional limit 
and the Republican party following 1I c 
fortunes of, and lending support to, 
administration born of the issues ai 1 
necessities of the war, and yet rulii j^ 
States by the might of militarism. 

These results show into what pait} 
forms the political elements were inclined 
to crystallize out of the chaos and dis- 
turbance of the Civil war. First we per- 
ceive a tidal and instinctive current of 
disposition to reinstate the Democratic 
party on the ante-bellum theory and prin- 
ciples, and the phenomenal effect of this leaning, in its accomplishment by 
a fusion of the Conservative Union with the Southern Rights elements. 

Under normal conditions of governmental policy and treatment, moder- 
ated with magnanimity and forbearance, and directed with considerate and 
humane statesmanship, not only should the entire mass of the Union party 
of the Southern and border States have been won and held to the support 
of the victorious administration, but this powerful nucleus of strength should 
have been heavily re-enforced from the ranks of the Southern Rights men 
themselves. Thus might probably have been secured to the support of the 
administration party a majority, or nearly all, of the old fifteen slave States, 
and in a legitimate and honorable way. The dominant party in possession 
of the Government, and of all its potential forces, was probably in the main 
moved with as good intentions as were possible to the statesmanship of the 
age, but half-leavened as yet with the highest type of intelligence and jus- 
tice to which the Cross will at last elevate our civilization. A distinguished 
historian of the present century was led to say, that from his readings and 
study of all history, he believed that a great majority of the cruelties and 
tyrannies perpetrated by those in supreme power, in all ages, were done 
with good intentions. When we consider that monarchs are ever liable to 
be influenced by the flattering pleas of courtiers and ambitious favorites, 
and the rulers of republics by the wiles of demagogues and schemers, all 
under the plausible pretexts of patriotism or public necessity, we may not 
be surprised that the whole machinery of the Federal Government was for 



REORGANIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 



761 



years prostituted to sustain an organized horde of spoilsmen and political 
bandits over the States of the South. Had the powers at Washington been 
moved with the spirit of justice and humanity which animated the hearts 
of the Republican leaders in Kentucky, it would have saved this great 
reproach upon our nation and history. 

We have enumerated some of the unfriendly acts, and imperfectly 
described the unfriendly animus, of the Federal administration, by which 
it broke down all confidence and fraternity and provoked the resistant 
hostility, mainly, of the intelligent masses of the people in the Southern 
and border States. Its encroachments upon the sovereignty of the States 
and the liberties of the citizens, under the war powers usurped and concen- 
trated in the Federal unit, and the continued exercise of these, long after 
peace, through military satrapies, Freedmen-Bureau agencies, and carpet- 
bag officials, alarmed and exasperated the powerful Conservative Union 
party, and drove it in self-defense into formidable opposition. The subju- 
gated Confederates, broken in power and fortune, conceded their cause lost, 
slavery gone, and the issues of war ended. There was no outlook for them 
but a return to the old Union, submission to its authority, and to be at 
peace once more, if permitted. Had the Government now been magnani- 
mous, forbearing and just, to restore to citizenship and self-government a 
sense of obligation and gratitude, and the assurance that their best interests 
and happiness would be subserved, would have built up overwhelming 
majorities for the administration party in every State South, by natural 
sequence. But their post-bellum condition under the duress of militarism 
and the rapacities of the carpet-bag dynasties was as deplorable as the con- 
dition of war itself. They were left no alternative. All Avere driven for 
self preservation into the ranks of the Democratic opposition. 

Thus the organization and overpowering strength of the Democratic 
party throughout the South was the reactionary product of resistance and 
protest against the usurpations, the injus- 
tice, and the abuses of the Republican 
administration, in its harsh and remorse- 
less exercise of extraordinary powers. 
Had Lincoln lived, this might not have 
been. 

It will be borne in mind that the ballot 
in the late elections was confined entirely 
to the whites in Kentucky ; the colored 
men were, as yet, denied the right of 
suffrage. On the 3d of September. John 
L. Helm was inaugurated governor while 
lying dangerously ill at home, and on the 
8th breathed his last. On the 13th John 
W. Stevenson, lieutenant-governor, was 




GOVERNOR JOHN 



STEVENSON. 



762 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



inaugurated governor, at Frankfort, by order of succession. General Frank 
Wolford was appointed adjutant-general, and Major Fayette Hewitt, quarter- 
master-general, both of whom, in their official capacities, rendered valuable 
material services to the Commonwealth during their terms. In General 
Hewitt's first report, in December, he shows that for the year 1867, $399,- 
224 had been refunded to Kentucky by the United States Government, on 
account of war claims; and that $1,468,937 was still owing on the same 
account, to facilitate a settlement for which proper steps were being taken. 
In some portions of the State, remnants of the bands of guerrillas, bush- 
whackers and lawless refuse of the war, organized themselves into inde- 
pendent associations, under the style of " Regulators," under plea or threat 
of visiting punishment upon citizens against whom were real or alleged 
offenses. As almost inevitably follows, in cases where one or more irrespon- 
sible individuals assume at once the functions of the regularly-constituted 
authorities of judge, jury and executioner, the license is indulged to 
revenge private grievances, and to gratify the lust of lawlessness. The 
results were heralded abroad in reports of murders, violent assaults, and 
terrorisms in a number of communities. 

Governor Stevenson promptly issued his proclamation, "that such law- 
less associations of men would not be tolerated, and that steps would be 
taken to bring the guilty to speedy punishment." General Wolford was 
instructed to recruit and equip three volunteer companies in Boyle, Marion 
and Casey counties, for the purpose named. Some time and trouble were 
taken to break up these organized disturbers of the public peace, but it was 
finally effected. 

In his message to the Legislature, Governor Stevenson called attention 
to the fact, that of the nine Kentucky representatives in Congress, only 
George M. Adams had been admitted to his seat. " Kentucky, entitled to 
nine representatives, has but one." On July 3d, when L. S. Trimble, 

Thomas L. Jones, John D. Young 
and James B. Beck went forward 
to the clerk's desk to be qualified 
as members, they were interrupted 
by Samuel McKee, who was con- 
testing the seat of J. D. Young. 
Their cases were referred to the 
committee on elections, to report 
whether, at the election, loyal 
voters were not overawed by rebel 
sympathizers, and also as to the 
loyalty of the said members claim- 
ant. The House afterward re- 
fused a seat to Young, and gave 

SENATOR JAVIES B. BECK. it tO McKee. 




FINANCES OF THE STATE. 763 

The message of Governor Stevenson to the General Assembly conven- 
ing in December, 1867, is a very lucid and able exposition of the condition 
of the finances and domestic affairs of the Commonwealth at the time, as 
well as of the policy of the Federal Government toward the State, and we 
therefore extract from it a summary of historic interest. Of the finances 
of the State, he says : 

"The public debt of the Commonwealth, on October loth, amounts to 
$4,611,199. This sum includes the school fund of $1,632,297, which 
deducted from the debt proper and payable leaves subject to payment, Octo- 
ber loth, $2,978,902. There was to the credit of the sinking fund on that 
date in the treasury, $1,519,783, In addition there is due the sinking fund, 
for money borrowed by the State, $381,239, which added to the amount 
in the treasury makes the total to the credit of the sinking fund, $1,901,022. 
Were this amount of cash on hand applied to the extinguishment of the 
State debt, the remainder of that debt, exclusive of the school fund, Avould 
amount to $1,077,877. 

"This indebtedness is represented by State bonds of different maturities, 
bearing interest at the rates of five and six per centum per annum. This 
amount of bonded indebtedness also includes $544,000 of the military 
bonds of the State, issued during the war, and designated as the remainder 
of the war debt. For the purpose of liquidating this debt, certain sources 
of State revenue were set apart by the Legislature, constituting what is 
known as the sinking fund. These resources were, from time to time, 
increased by the General Assembly. The Constitution provides that 
they may be increased, but shall never be diminished, until the State 
debt is paid. 

" The sources of revenue thus set apart as sacredly belonging to the 
sinking fund were taxes j^aid by the banks, by insurance companies, 
brokers, etc.; the rentals of the penitentiary, and receipts from slack-water 
improvements; stock owned in certain banks, railways and turnpikes. 
Many turnpike stocks are much below par value. If all these stocks were 
worth par, the resources of the sinking fund, independent of the $1,901,022, 
cash in the treasury, would be $6, 103,294. Add the cash item named, and 
the total resources of the sinking fund, at a par estimate, are $8,004,317. 
Were the entire indebtedness of the Commonwealth liquidated, there would 
still remain to the credit of the sinking fund $7,926,438. This would be 
the apparent balance. From it must be deducted the depreciation of the 
turnpike stocks, and added the premium on the bank stocks over their par 
value. It may safely be assumed that, after the extinguishment of the entire 
indebtedness, several millions surplus would remain to the credit of the 
sinking fund. 

" On January i, 1867, there was due from the United States Government 
to tKis Commonwealth, for money advanced for war purposes, $1,831,706, 
of which $399,224 has since been paid, leaving yet due $1,432,482. Our 



764 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

State agent, Colonel Pennebaker, is actively pressing the payment of this 
balance upon the proper authorities at Washington. I recommend, as a 
measure of sound policy, the payment of the State debt at the earliest 
practicable moment, as but three per cent, is paid for the money on hand 
on deposit in the banks, but little more than one-half the interest we pay on 
our bonds." 

The governor further submitted a special report of the superintendent of 
pubHc instruction, and recommended " its matured suggestions to careful 
consideration. The Superintendent attributes a vv^ant of greater success in 
our common-school instruction to a want of means and to certain defects 
in local organization, which require amendment." This special report 
embodied the question of the Legislature submitting to a vote of the people 
the increase from five cents to twenty cents upon the one hundred dollars 
of taxable property for the benefit of the school fund, the increase of the 
school term from three to five months, and trebling the teachers' wages, with 
an improved management under a better-organized county superintendence 
and qualified corps of teachers. The ratification by popular vote in 1869, 
and the successful prosecution and development for years of the programme 
mapped out in the report, gave the basis and structure of the present system 
of common schools in Kentucky. 

The message refers to the condition of the State prison at length. One 
hundred and nine thousand and twenty-seven dollars were appropriated by 
the preceding Legislature for the purpose of enlarging and extending the 
penitentiary building, which work would soon be finished. These accom- 
modations were imperatively demanded. The contract was for two hundred 
and four new cells. It was obvious that more would be needed, and it was 
recommended that an appropriation be made for one hundred and eight 
additional cells. In 1863, when Harry I. Todd entered upon the duties as 
lessee, there were but two hundred and forty-seven prisoners confined. 
Twenty years later they had increased to five hundred and fifty. At the 
date of the message, there were three hundred and thirty-six cells occupied, 
and on the completion of the new ones there were five hundred and forty, 
or ten less than the number of prisoners. And as the latter so rapidly 
increased, the additional one hundred and eight cells were found needed. 
The governor earnestly recommended a thorough revision of the prison 
discipline, mainly urging that the indiscriminate mixing of men and boys, 
and women and girls, without reference to their moral grade and condition 
as criminals, be discontinued or guarded against. The hardened, the prof- 
ligate, and the abandoned should be separated as far as possible from the 
young, the helpless, the unfortunate in crime. No system of prison dis- 
cipline which does not rest on Christian benevolence and the enlightened 
principles of civil polity is worthy of a free people. It was, therefore, rec- 
ommended that "a house of refuge for the young in crime, next to a "com- 



ELECTIONS IN 1867 AND 1868. 



765 




GOVERNOR PRESTON 



mon-school system, which has been already reverted to, is one of the first 
wants of a free Commonwealth." 

In reference to Federal relations, the message continues: "If we turn 
our eyes to ten States of the Union, we behold them stripped by Federal 
legislation of their equality, their sov- 
ereignty, their right of suffrage, and all 
right of representation in either house 
of Congress. All the bulwarks of per- 
sonal freedom — habeas corpus, freedom 
of speech, freedom of the press, trial by 
jury — have been ruthlessly taken away. 
Palpable and flagrant as these violations 
of the rights of the States are, I am 
pained to say we are confronted with 
more fearful usurpations. The recent 
scheme of congressional reconstruction 
of ten States of the Union and the 
practical operations now occurring under 
it must, in their efforts, if successful, 
sweep away every vestige of our Federal 
system of free government. What is the remedy ? Not by State veto of 
any Federal enactment. No such power, in my judgment, is possessed by 
any State to nullify at will a Federal enactment. The remedy, then, is 
not in secession. Its madness has too recently been illustrated in blood 
to find any advocates." 

Governor Stevenson, though ever a pronounced friend and advocate of 
States' rights, limited only by the rights of the Federal Government as de- 
fined and expressed in the Constitution, was as firmly opposed to the doc- 
trine of secession and nullification. 

On the assembling of the Legislature, Hon. William Johnson, of Bards- 
town, was elected by the Senate to preside over that body and ex-officio 
lieutenant-governor of Kentucky, in place of John W. Stevenson, now gov- 
ernor. In January before, Garrett Davis had been re-elected United States 
senator for six years from March 4, 1867, over Henry D. McHenry, by but 
two votes. In February, 1868, James Guthrie having resigned his seat in 
the same body on account of ill health, Thomas C. McCreery was elected 
by the Legislature to the vacancy. In August, 1868, Governor Stevenson 
was regularly elected governor, and B. J. Peters again elected to the Appel- 
late bench. 

The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, de- 
fining and conferring citizenship, including the colored race, though rejected 
by the Legislature of Kentucky, had in 1867 received the requisite vote of 
the majority of States for its adoption, and in 1869 the fifteenth amendment 
proposed was also rejected by our Legislature, though it was shortly after 



766 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



ratified by a sufficient number of States to make it the law. It reads as fol- 
lows : 

" Section i. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not 
be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

'* SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
appropriate legislation." 

The concession of the full privileges of citizenship to the colored freed- 
men in Kentucky came slowly and with apparent reluctance on the part of 
the party in power. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, conferring 
citizenship and suffrage respectively, were stubbornly resisted, and very 
much from a sense of defiance at the obnoxious intrusiveness of Federal in- 
terference. The extreme Radical element in the State, in full sympathy to 
fasten these results with a precipitancy in advance of public sentiment, lent 
its acquiescence to this policy of Federal coercion which invested the con- 
stitutional majority with the authority of military absolutism over the ten 
disarmed and dismantled Southern States. These citizens' rights must have 
come to all, and in reasonable time. Indeed, many of the Democratic party 
already favored iheir concession, as they did the right of the negro to testify 
in the courts, and which a majority of the party conferred in due time after, 
as they subsequently did equality of rights and privileges in the common 
schools. Of the justice and ultimate disposition of all these measures, there 
was a common consent of the wiser men of both parties, the Republicans 

urging that what was right should 
be enforced at once, the Demo- 
crats awaiting the education and 
growth of public sentiment until 
assured of a supporting majority. 
The great mass of the leaders of 
the former party, earnest, hon- 
est, and patriotic, believed and 
pleaded that the control of the 
old slave-State governments could 
not be entrusted to the white 
citizenship so recently in armed 
rebellion against its authority. 
And with the plausibility and force 
of ancient historic precedent it 
was argued that they would re- 
assert in some form a mastery 
over the colored freedmen, deny 
to them the rights of free and 
equal citizenship, and reduce the State governments in a measure to the 
ante-bellum status. 





HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE. 



JOHN W. STEVENSON RESIGNS. 



767 




WILLIAM O'CONNELL BRADLEY. 



Conceding all honesty to these views held, we can but believe that they 
were based on premises which were untenable and misleading. They would 
have been justified in the centuries past, when the authority of force paid 
no respect to equal manhood, and when the honor and intelligence of the 
subject counted for nothing. But they 
undervalued and depreciated the nobler 
qualities of modern civilization in refus- 
ing to credit the good faith and integ- 
rity of the intelligent whites of the 
South. Instead of the twelve years of 
carpet-bag corruption and spoliation, 
and the impoverishment and debase- 
ment of these State interests, there 
might have been, in less than half these 
years, a reconstruction upon the basis 
of honor, self-interest, and intelligence, 
by the deposed and disbarred classes — 
the only element of these populations 
capable at the time of good and honest 
government. 

On the assembling of the biennial 
Legislature, in December, 1869, P. H. Leslie was elected president of the 
Senate. As the term of United States Senator Thomas C. McCreery 
would expire in March, 187 1, the Assembly proceeded to the election of a 
successor ; and after a spirited and protracted contest, John W. Stevenson 
was elected over Mr. McCreery. This result vacated in due time the 
office of governor, and on the loth of February, 187 1, John W. Stevenson 
sent in his resignation, to take effect on the 13th, Preston H. Leslie suc- 
ceeding him, by virtue of his position as the presiding officer of the Senate, 
for the few months remaining of the term. 

On the assembling of the Democratic State Convention, May 3d, P. H. 
Leslie was nominated for governor and John G. Carlisle for lieutenant- 
governor, for the regular term of four years. There were also nominated, 
for auditor, D, Howard Smith; for treasurer, James W. Tate; for attorney- 
general, John Rodman ; for superintendent of public instruction, H. A. M. 
Henderson; for register of the land office, J. Alex Grant. Opposed to 
these, respectively, the Republican State Convention nominated John M. 
Harlan, George M. Thomas, William Krippenstapel, Smith S. Fry, William 
Brown, W. E. Moberly, and J. K. McClarty. The Democratic ticket was 
elected by the reduced majorities of about thirty-eight thousand, in conse- 
quence of the accession of the colored vote to the Republican ranks, follow- 
ing the adoption of the fifteenth amendment. It was an important episode 
in the suffrage rights of Kentucky, as it was in many of her sister Common- 
wealths. 



768 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




JUDGE WILLIAM LINDSAY. 



Ill the resolutions adopted in the Democratic Convention, the usual prin- 
ciples and sentiments were expressed. In those of the Republican body, 
the sentiment was announced in the last resolution, " We earnestly desire 
the restoration of friendly relations with the people of our sister States lately 
in arms against the national authority, and earnestly wish for them all the 

blessings and prosperity to be enjoyed 
under a republican form of government. 
We are in favor of complete amnesty to 
all of our fellow-citizens, of every State, 
who are laboring under disabilities by 
reason of their participatioii in the late 
rebellion." Thus, the honest leaders 
and masses of the Republican party, 
while steadily loyal to the principles 
they had espoused, put themselves on 
record in terms of condemnation of the 
abuses and wrongs that were being 
inflicted upon the subjugated States 
through the infamous and odious acts 
of the carpet-bag spoilers. 
Their resolutions further held responsible the party in power for the 
failure to adopt and enforce measures to suppress and exterminate the 
Ku-klux organizations, whose lawlessness had become a very disturbing 
cause in some sections; censured the party for its neglect to provide for the 
education of the colored children, and for refusing the colored man the 
right to testify in the courts, all of which the Democrats in authority were 
disposed to, and did, accomplish in a reasonable time after. It is but due 
to credit here the Republican party with an earnest advocacy and aid of 
liberal measures for the material and intellectual progress of the people of 
the Commonwealth, and especially for their uniform and undivided support 
of all efforts at school reform from time to time. It is but due, on the other 
hand, to note the fact that all advancement in these directions has been 
promoted and sustained by the dominant majority of the Democratic party, 
looking to the welfare of both the white and colored races. 

In the message of Governor Leslie to the Legislature, in December, 
1 87 1, the financial exhibit for the State is not largely different from that of 
his predecessor, except in the recurring annual deficits of receipts over ex- 
penditures, to which he makes special allusion. The subject was considered 
at the session of the Legislature, in March, 1871, when an act was passed 
providing for the sale of superabundant assets of the sinking fund, the pay- 
ment of the State debt, and the future diversion of all receipts into the 
treasury to the payment of the current expenses of the government. He 
estimates the excess of asset resources over the State debt at $2,401,198, of 
which $1,013,098 is the balance due from the United States, on account 



THE L., C. & L. RAILROAD SUED, 



769 




NORVIN GREEN, 



of advances during the war. The message discusses at length the lawless- 
ness existing in sections of the Commonwealth, from secretly-organized 
bands known as "Regulators'' and " Ku-klux Klans." Under whatever 
plausible pretexts such organizations may have assumed to take the law into 
their hands for the summary pursuit and punishment of the perpetrators 
of unusual and frequent crimes, the 
logical result had followed, and the 
members of these bands themselves 
had become responsible for the worst 
of crimes. The governor calls upon 
the Legislature for its co-operation in 
breaking up this organized outlawry, 
and in bringing to justice its guilty 
members. Especially was this neces- 
sary as, under the authority of Con- 
gress, the Federal courts were assert- 
ing jurisdiction, and the marshals 
were arresting citizens implicated, 
bearing them hundreds of miles from 
home and casting them into the city 
prisons to await their trials in the 
Federal courts, and such proceed- 
ings worked infinite wrong and hardships to such as were unable to 
bear the expenses of witnesses, attorneys, etc., in their own defense. 
Finally, the governor urged upon the Legislature the propriety of an 
amendment of the laws, admitting the testimony of colored persons in the 
courts. Soon after, the law was enacted for the suppression of all secret 
lawless associations, fixing the severest penalties upon persons against 
whom its execution might apply. 

In October, 187 1, the Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington railroad, then 
under the presidency of Dr. Norvin Green, was sold to the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railroad Company, in the interest of C. P. Huntington & Co. In 
the terms of contract, the latter paid fifty cents on the par value for one 
million of the new stock, and obligated to pay for all, or any part, of the 
sixteen hundred thousand dollars of old stock which might be tendered 
them within sixty days, sixty cents on the par value cash, or sixty-five cents 
on six months' time. The State owning some three hundred thousand dol- 
lars of the stock of this railroad, the opportunity of selling this asset and 
realizing nearly two hundred thousand dollars to the treasury was lost, 
probably from a want of optional authority on the part of the commissioners. 
Though the Legislature met December 4th, thirty-seven days after the sale, 
it was not until January nth, after, that a resolution was passed direct- 
ing the sale at sixty-five cents, two weeks after the limitation. The railroad 
was operated by the purchasers but a few years, when it was sold in bank- 



49 



77° 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



--^ 






V 




HON. MILTON J. DURHAM. 



ruptcy, the stockholders divested of all property rights, and the State's 
interest lost. 

Several of the judges of the circuit courts, among them Judges William 
H. Randall, M. F. Gofer, William S. Pryor, J. Cripps Wickliffe, and H .W. 

Bruce, ventured in advance of 
legislative provision, on grounds 
which seemed sufficient, to admit 
the testimony of colored persons 
in their courts, until precedent 
had almost become usage before 
the enactment of the statute, 
January 8, 1872. 

In 1868, B. J. Peters was 
elected for eight years to a seat 
on the Appellate bench, and 
William Lindsay for eight years, 
in 1870. The venerable George 
Robertson having resigned his 
seat on account of protracted 
indisposition, September, 187 1, 
William S. Pryor was appointed 
for the remainder of his term, 
and in August, 1872, was elected for the succeeding eight years, and M. J. 
Gofer was, in 1884, elected to the same bench for a like term. In charging 
the grand jury in the United States District Court at Louisville, on the 2 2d 
of February, 1872, Judge Bland Ballard announced that the jurisdiction of 
that court in all cases arising under the "civil rights act" ceased January 
30th, previous, when the Kentucky Legislature authorized negro testimony. 
Thus was ended a source of infinite annoyance and irritation to the people 
of the State. 

On the 2ist of January, 1873, Willis B. Machen, who had the previous 
year been appointed by Governor Leslie to fill out the unexpired term of 
Garrett Davis, deceased, as United States senator, was elected by the Legis- 
lature to the same office until March 4th, following; Thomas C. McCreery 
succeeding from that date for six years, until 1879. The representatives in 
the Forty-third Congress from Kentucky, 1873-75, were, George M. Adams, 
William E. Arthur, James B. Beck, John Young Brown, Ed Crossland, 
Milton J. Durham, Charles W. Milliken, William B. Read, E. D. Standiford 
and John D. Young. On the 4th of March, Grant and Wilson were inaug- 
urated as president and vice-president, elected over Horace Greeley and 
B. Gratz Brown. 

Two important acts of the General Assembly, in 1873, are worthy of 
mention. One of these required the governor " to appoint a State geolo- 
gist, with two assistants, to undertake and prosecute, with as much expedi- 



OUTCRY AGAINST THE KU-KLUX. 



771 



tion and dispatch as may be consistent with minuteness and accuracy, a 
thorough geological, mineralogical and chemical survey of this State, to 
discover and examine all beds or deposits of ore, coal, clays, and such other 
mineral substances as may be useful and valuable, and with a view to deter- 
mine the order and comparative magnitude of the several strata or geolog- 
ical formations of the State." Under this act Professor N. S. Shaler, of 
Harvard College, was appointed chief of the corps of the survey, and 
subsequently was succeeded by Professor John R. Procter, the present 
incumbent. The results of the operations of this department, advertising 
to the world in reports, general and special, the superabundance of valua- 
ble ores, of vast timber growths, and of cheap and productive lands, have 
been, and promise to be, of inestimable benefit in the increase of popula- 
tion, industries and wealth of the State. 

The other law referred to provided for the punishment, by severe penal- 
ties, of any person who should " send, circulate, exhibit, or put up any 
threatening notice or letter, signed with such person's own, or another name, 
or anonymously; " also, "any two or more persons who shall confederate 
or band themselves together, for the purpose of intimidating, threatening, 
or alarming any person or persons, or to do any unlawful act ; or who shall 
go forth together armed and disguised." This act had become an evident 
and urgent necessity, from the frequent outrages perpetrated by men 
secretly banded together and in disguise, under the name of " Ku-klux," 
the vicious remains of the war issues. Another act passed imposed a fine 
of one hundred dollars, or imprisonment from one to twelve months, or 
both, upon any person who should at- 
tempt to intimidate or deter, by threat 
or violence, any other citizen from vot- 
ing at any election in the State. A 
military committee, appointed to inves- 
tigate these outrages, reported to the 
Legislature in December, 1872, that : 
there were abundant reasons for the 
outcry and complaint against the acts of 
these unlawful bands of disguised armed 
men, and evidences of their bold and 
defiant proceedings ; that the laws re- 
lating needed some further features of 
special application ; but that the main 
cause of the non-execution of the exist- 
ing laws for the prevention and punish- 
ment of the peculiar crimes committed 
was the failure of the judges and grand juries to do their duties faithfully; 
especially of the judges, who have the power of instructing and directing 
the grand juries in the full performance of their sworn duties. The conclu- 




HON. JOSEPH C. S. BLACKBURN. 



772 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 




HON. JAMES B. M CREARY. 



sion of the committee as to the main cause may well be said to be confirmed 
in the observing and intelligent public mind, and with reference to other 
and aggravated forms of lawlessness and impunity which have brought cen- 
sure on the good name of the Commonwealth in the past and present, in 
other and many sections. Whether it be attributable to the compromising 

laxity of an elective judiciary, or 



other cause, certainly the indulgence 
of the highly-empowered and respon- 
sible functionary upon the bench has 
mainly to do with the artful and dis- 
sembling methods by which the most 
flagrant crimes go unpunished. Over 
the officers of the court, the attorneys, 
the grand and petit juries, and the 
methods and proceedings, the judge is 
invested with directing and controll- 
ing authority, and need only enforce 
it with firm consistency ordinarily to 
reach the ends of justice. Where they 
have shown and exercised these qual- 
ities of firmness and decision in their 
orderings and rulings, it will be noted these results usually followed — the re- 
straining of lawless violence, and the visiting of due punishment on criminals. 
In September, 1873, ^^S^^ ^^^ most extraordinary financial panic which 
this country has ever experienced. Ten years before and in the middle of 
the period of the great war of the rebellion, an era of speculative adventure, 
of overproduction and waste, and of unparalleled inflation, set in and con- 
tinued its onward flow toward high tide, until near the point of culmina- 
tion. Coincident with this inflation, which was a financial war result, and 
powerfully contributing to its abnormal growth, was the depreciated value of 
the national or greenback paper currency in its relation to the gold stand- 
ard. Before the close of the war, in 1865, it reached the point of three 
hundred to one hundred, in comparison with gold; then spasmodically at 
intervals advanced to two hundred, then to one hundred and fifty in its 
approximation toward par. The prices of real and personal property 
advanced in proportion with the decline of the mercurial currency with 
which it was bought and sold, since sensitive gold was hoarded and became 
an article of merchandise more than of exchange. Lands and realties, 
grain, stocks and manufactured wares, were doubled in value. All floated 
upon the wild and swollen current, little dreaming of the Niagara ahead. 
On the 1 8th of September, 1873, the crisis was reached, and the event 
precipitated by the failure of the noted banking houses of Jay Cooke & 
Co., in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, and the associate house 
of Cooke, McCullough & Co., of London. 



SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED CHILDREN. 



773 



\ 



In the brief space of thirty days the cyclone of financial retribution and 
ruin had spent its most furious force, and spread the country over with its 
unhappy wrecks, prostrating thousands of commercial and industrial estab- 
lishments, cutting off the wages 
of hundreds of thousands of 
workingmen, overthrowing stock 
exchanges, banking houses, trust 
companies and manufactories. 
In a single day it broke off 
the negotiation of American se- 
curities in Europe, and paral- 
yzed the monetary circulation 
to a degree that carried distress 
to almost every home in the 
country. It was but a repeti- 
tion of the old story, only in 
its most gigantic illustration, of 
a period of abnormal inflation, 
followed by its inevitable result 
— collapse and long depression. 
Of course, Kentucky felt the 
shock of disaster as sensibly as 
other portions of the Union, and 
for the five years following was 
the scene of failures, of bankruptcies, and of business stagnation, with mer- 
chants, bankers, farmers, and others. 

Before the close of the legislative session of 1873-74, an act was passed 
providing for a " uniform system of common schools for the colored chil- 
dren of the Commonwealth." A separate fund and separate schools were 
the main features. The fund was to consist of all the revenues derived 
from both the State and school taxes — forty-five cents on the one hundred 
dollars — collected on the assessments of the property of the colored people, 
a capitation tax of one dollar on each male colored adult, and some taxes 
from miscellaneous sources enumerated. The general supervision was 
then placed under the school commissioners of the counties, and the dis- 
trict management left with the colored people. 

In the State election for 1875, the Democratic ticket was elected by 
majorities approximating forty thousand votes : James B. McCreary, for 
governor, over John M. Harlan, Republican ; John C. Underwood, for 
lieutenant-governor, over Robert Boyd; Thomas E. Moss, attorney-general, 
over AVilliam Cassius Goodloe ; D. Howard Smith, auditor, over R. B. 
Ratliff; James W. Tate, treasurer, over W. J. Berry ; H. A. M. Hender- 
son, superintendent of public instruction ; and Thomas D. Marcum, register, 
over Reuben Patrick. Of the resolutions adopted by the Republican Con- 




HON. ALBERT S. WILLIS. 



774 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



vention was one complimentary to Benjamin H. Bristow, a distinguished 
citizen and native of Kentucky, who had been appointed and was then 
acting secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of President Grant. Curtis 
F, Burnam, of Richmond, was appointed first assistant secretary. 

In the message of Governor McCreary, m December following his 
inaugural, he made his financial summary showing the entire bonded debt 
of the State to be only $184,394, all having been redeemed but these. To 
meet the outstanding indebtedness, the State held $145,559 in the sinking 
fund, government bonds valued at $246,000, and stocks of the bank ot 
Louisville, the Louisville & Frankfort Railroad Company, and turnpike 
stocks, together amounting to $350,032, besides a balance in the treasury. 
The State also owned two hundred and sixty shares of the preferred stock 
of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington railroad, and 2,178 common 
shares in the Frankfort & Lexington railroad. There remained unpaid 
of the war claim against the United States, $248,863. At the beginning 
of the fiscal year, October 11, 1874, there was a surplus in the treasury of 
$241,741. The receipts of the year were $1,378,788, and the expenditures, 
$1,258,925, leaving a balance in the treasury of $361,604. Thus it will be 
seen that in any year since the close of the war the State has been in a 
financial condition, with assets abundant to pay off her entire indebted- 
ness, and hold a handsome balance in the treasury; to abolish the sinking- 
fund machinery, and in future to have 
all revenues and receipts directed to 
the payment of the current expenses, 
a consummation which will await the 
tardy processes by which the people 
of the Commonwealth favored them- 
selves with a new and modern State 
constitution. 

During this year. 1875, the Appel- 
late Court finally confirmed the sale of 
the State's large interest in certain 
turnpike stocks to Baldwin & Co., 
which was made under an act of the 
Legislature in 187 1, empowering the 
sinking fund commissioners to so sell 
and convey. The bids of Baldwin & 
Co. had been accepted, and other 
terms complied with by them, but the 
contract had not been signed nor bond executed. The commissioners, 
finding the sale too great a sacrifice, refused to complete the contract ; 
hence, the suit, and the result. 

The Legislature of 1875-76 established a bureau of agriculture, horti- 
culture, and statistics, providing for a commissioner, "whose duty it shall 




GOVERNOR LUKE P. BLACKBURN, 



THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876. 



'75 



be to gather information and statistics upon agriculture, horticulture, and 
other industrial interests, and to assist and encourage the formation of asso- 
ciations to promote the same, and to make annual reports thereon." This 
bureau is yet sustained, and has been the agency of much good in the State. 
Provision was made at the 
same session for the continu- 
ance of the geological survey, 
and also for the propagation 
and protection of food-fishes 
in the waters of Kentucky. 

At this session James E. 
Beck was elected United 
States senator, to serve six 
years from the 4th of March, 
1877; and at the session in 
January, 1878, John S. Will- 
iam s was elected United States 
senator, to serve six years 
from the 4th of March, 1879. 
In November, 1876, the rep- 
resentatives-elect to the suc- 
ceeding Congress were Oscar 
Turner, James A. McKenzie, 
John W. Caldwell, J. Proctor 
Knott, Albert S. Willis, John 
G. Carlisle, J. C. S. Blackburn, Philip B. Thompson, Jr., George M. 
Adams, and Elijah C. Phister. 

In 1876, the election for president and vice-president came off, followed 
by results the most extraordinary and revolutionary that ever attended a 
similar event in the history of this country. Tilden and Hendricks were 
the candidates of the Democratic party; Hayes and Wheeler, of the Repub- 
lican ; Cooper and Carey, of the Greenback or National ; and Green Clay 
Smith and Stewart, of the Prohibition party. Even by the count of the 
celebrated returm'ng-l>oard expedient, Tilden's popular majority was 157,394. 
Few unprejudiced minds of any party questioned that his majority was as 
decided in the electoral college. Yet the Republican party in power con- 
trolled the vast machinery of the Federal Government, with its bold and 
able leaders, by the instrumentalities of the carpet-bag agencies in the 
Southern States, and by the menace of the military forces, determined upon 
the reversion of the returns made as expressed at the polls, and the control 
of national affairs for the next four years. The history of the methods and 
proceedings by which Hayes and Wheeler were counted in as president 
and vice-president we can not give here. It became apparent to the en- 
thralled people of the South that Tilden and his advisers would submic 




HON. WALTER EVANS. 



776 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

without resistance to this remarkable expedient to retain administrative 
power. The ablest and most sagacious of the Democratic statesmen in the 
Southern States, held in subjection by the carpet-baggers, seeing that the 
fruits of the Democratic victory they had so gallantly helped to win were 
about to be lost, made a virtue of necessity. They prudently sought con- 
cessions from the president and his advisers. Their aim and desire were to 
induce the incoming administration of Hayes to remove the military forces 
from the subjugated States that the people might drive out the carpet-bag 
element and their rule of corruption, and restore home government to the 
citizens. After the inauguration of President Hayes, he generously complied 
in the case of South Carolina, March 22, 1877, and in other States soon 
after. Thus ended these odious and corrupt usurpations, after a dynasty 
of twelve years of fraud and spoliation upon a fettered, helpless, and im- 
poverished people. 

Recognizing his superior fitness. President Hayes appointed General 
John M. Harlan, of Kentucky, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, which office he yet fills. 

On the expiration of the appellate term of Chief-Justice William Lind- 
say, in September, 1878, Judge William S. Pryor, having the shortest term, 
became chief-justice of the State, and Judge Thomas H. Hines succeeded 
the former upon the appellate bench for the next eight years. In 1881, 
Joseph H. Lewis was elected to fill the vacancy of M. J. Cofer, deceased. 

In the State election for 1879, the Democratic ticket was successful by 
majorities approximating forty- four thousand over the Republican. The 
National party ticket polled over eighteen thousand votes. Luke P. Black- 
burn, for governor, was elected over Walter Evans, Republican, and C. W. 
Cook, National; for lieutenant-governor, James E. Cantrill, over O. S. Dem- 
ing and D. B. Lewis; for attorney-general, P. W. Hardin, over A. H. Clark 
and I. H. Trabue ; for auditor, Fayette Hewitt, over J. Williamson and 
Henry Potter; for treasurer, James W. Tate, over R. P. Stoll and W. T. 
Hardin ; for superintendent of public instruction, J. D. Pickett, over Mc- 
Intire and K. C. McBeath ; and for register, Ralph Sheldon, over J. H, 
Wilson and Gano Henry. 

Governor Blackburn's message embodied some important recommenda- 
tions, most of which were acted on by the Legislature. Among these were 
measures for the increase of the revenues to meet the annoying deficits 
which had repeatedly occurred in the annual exhibits for fifteen years past, 
or longer ; the substitution of the warden system for the lessee plan, and 
other changes in the penitentiary management; the creation of a commis- 
sion for the regulation of railroads, and the transfer of the State's improve- 
ments in the Kentucky river to the general government. The overcrowded 
condition of the penitentiary, productive of much suffering and sickness, 
and unusually fatal, caused Governor Blackburn to exercise the power of 
pardoning with a liberal hand, until the nine hundred and sixty- nine con- 



THE ASSASSINATIOrf OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 



777 




GOVERNOR J. PROCTOR KNOTT. 



victs were reduced to a number that could be better accommodated by the 
seven hundred and eighty cells of the prison. 

In the presidential election of 1880, the Hancock and English electors, 
Democratic, received in Kentucky 148,715 votes, against 106,306 for the 
electors for Garfield and Arthur, and 
11,499 for Weaver, National. Garfield 
and Arthur were, however, elected 
president and vice-president, and in- 
augurated on the 4th of March, 1881. 
The tragic wounding of the president 
in July after, by a pistol-shot from 
the hand of the assassin Guiteau, 
and his protracted suffering and final 
death, together with the trial, convic- 
tion, and execution of the assassin, 
are matters yet fresh in the memories 
of the people. 

In the session of 1881-82, an act 
was passed by the General Assembly 
creating the Superior Court, to be held 
in Frankfort, for the relief of the 
Appellate Court, the docket of which was overcrowded hopelessly with 
delayed business. It was to be composed of three judges from three dis- 
tricts embracing the entire State, and to have a defined and limited jurisdic- 
tion over the less important cases before the Court of Appeals. In the 
First district, J. H. Bowden was elected a judge of this court; in the Sec- 
ond, A. E. Richards; and in the Third, Richard Reid. This court has 
proved efficient, and has rendered most valuable and indispensable services 
toward relieving the docket of the accumulated excess of business, and the 
people of the long waiting for the ends of justice. Though the original 
law provided for a term of four years, the Legislature of 1885-86 re-enacted 
the law for a continuance of four years longer. 

In the eastern portion of the State, mainly, the peace and good order 
of the Commonwealth have been seriously disturbed by turbulent and vio- 
lent factions and parties from time to time since the termination of the war, 
and to an extent that required the calling out of the State troops to aid the 
civil authorities in the enforcement of the law. 

The most notable and tragic instance of this occurred at Ashland, in 
Boyd county, in 1882. A triple murder, with incendiarism, of a character 
to excite the profoundest horror and indignation in the public mind, was per- 
petrated in the near vicinity. Suspicion fell upon Neal, Craft, and Ellis, as 
the guilty persons, and threats and attempts were made to lynch the parties 
by the enraged populace. Judge George N. Brown sat in that judicial dis- 
trict at the time, and did all in his power to administer the law. Finding 



778 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

this impossible, on requisition, Governor Blackburn dispatched several com- 
panies of the State troops, under command of Major John Allen, to the 
scene of riot, to protect the court and prisoners during a hearing for a 
change of venue. The troops, with the prisoners in charge, left on a steamer 
going down the Ohio. When opposite Ashland, the steamer was fired into 
by the mob, when the troops returned the fire, killing over twenty of the 
citizens, unhappily among thern several women and children. The final 
result was that all three were found guilty at their trials, Ellis taken out by 
the mob and put to death, and Neal and Craft executed by the sheriff. The 
firmness and fairness of Judge Brown in this affair were creditable to the 
bench and to himself. 

In the election for representatives in the Forty-eighth Congress, of Dem- 
ocrats there were elected: Oscar Turner, in the First district; James F. 
Clay, in the Second; J. G. Halsell, in the Third; T. A. Robertson, in the 
Fourth; Albert S. Willis, in the Fifth; John G. Carlisle, in the Sixth; J. C. 
S. Blackburn, in the Seventh; P. B. Thompson, in the Eighth; and Frank 
Wolford, in the Eleventh. Of Republicans : W. W. Culbertson, in the 
Ninth ; and John D. White, in the Tenth. 

In the Third district, Joseph H. Lewis was regularly elected to succeed 
himself upon the appellate bench, for the term of eight years. 

In the State election in 1883, the Democratic ticket was successful by the 
usual majorities, approximating forty-five thousand votes. For governor^ 
Thomas Z.Morrow was defeated by J. Proctor Knott; for lieutenant-governor, 
Speed S. Fry, by J. R. Hindman ; for attorney-general, L. C. Garrigus, by P. 
W. Hardin; for auditor, L. R. Hawthorne, by Fayette Hewitt; for treasurer, 
Edwin Farley, by James W. Tate; for superintendent of public instruction^ 
J. P. Pinkerton, by J. D. Pickett ; for register, J, W. Asbury, by J. G. Cecil. 
These were the State officers installed for the term, with the additions of 
James A. McKenzie, secretary of state; H. M. McCarty, assistant secretary; 
John Davis, commissioner of agriculture ; L. C. Norman, insurance com- 
missioner ; and John R. Procter, State geologist. On the appellate bench 
were Chief- Justice Thomas F. Hargis, Thomas H. Hines, William S. Pryor, 
and Joseph H. Lewis. In the year 1884, Judge Hargis' term having ex- 
pired, William H. Holt was elected from the Fourth district to succeed him. 
J. C. S. Blackburn was early in this year elected United States senator for 
six years, from March 4, 1885. 

In the first message of Governor Knott is the statement that, " Notwith- 
standing the gratifying evidences of the extraordinary popular prosperity, 
there has been but little change, and certainly no improvement, in the con- 
dition of our State finances during the two years since the meeting of the 
last General Assembly." In the exhibit made, there was in the treasury at 
the close of the fiscal year, June 30, 1882, a balance of $48,064, and receipts 
to June 30, 1883, $1,622,328. Total disbursements, $1,661,768; leaving 
a balance of $8,624. To meet previous accumulated deficits, the treasury 



A STATE EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. 779 

had borrowed $500,000; deduct the balance shown, and the actual deficit 
June 30, 1S83, was $49i>375- 

The governor unquestionably touched the main and only problem of this 
inexcusable condition of State revenues and finances, in the comment, that 
" the difficulty is to be found in our grossly defective system of assessment, 
rendered still more inefficient by the negligent and unsatisfactory manner in 
which it is administered. The last assessment made the taxable property of 
the State $374,500,000. Our real property alone is worth double that sum.'' 
The auditor has repeatedly set forth the evils in his reports, and strenuously 
urged reform, on the basis of the draft of a bill carefully prepared through 
him, and on which the favorable action of the Legislature of 1885-86 was 
asked. If these estimates of our best informed authorities be not over- 
drawn, and we have no reason to believe they are, an equitable and full 
assessment of the property of the State would justify a reduction of the State 
tax for current expenses to twenty cents, while the school tax would be 
made to increase the school fund over fifty per cent.; to extend the school 
term to six months, and to pay the teachers over thirty per cent, more on 
monthly wages. 

On April 5, 1883, a great State educational convention met at Frankfort, 
for the purpose of considering the situation, and devising and organizing 
means for the final reform of the school system. A committee was named, 
reported defects and needed amendments to an adjourned meeting, called 
to be held at Louisville, on the 20th of September. The report recom- 
mended the most liberal reforms which were practical for adoption and 
use ; and this great prompting movement among the friends of education 
in the Commonwealth was responded to by the succeeding General Assem- 
bly, in the enactment of a law adapted in the main to the general wants 
of the common schools, a great improvement on any which had existed 
heretofore. 

For the third time, the Legislature of 1883-84 passed an act providing 
for taking the sense of the people, as to the calling of a convention to frame 
a new Constitution for the Commonwealth, at the ensuing August election. 
The proposition was again defeated by the indifference of the people, and a 
general neglect to vote. Another act at this session provided for the con- 
struction of a new penitentiary at Eddyville, Lyon county, for the accom- 
modation of the increasing and overflowing number of convicts, and to be 
occupied by an exclusive class of prisoners, toward whom the discipline 
aims to be reformatory. 

The temperance and reform sentiment growing steadily in volume and 
activity throughout the State, acts have been passed during the sessions of 
past years and to 1885-86 granting towns, districts, and counties local option 
laws, or the right to prohibit the manufacture of or traffic in intoxicating 
beverages within the limits of such districts, on a ratification by a popular 
vote of the citizens of the same. Under this legislation, quite a number of 



780 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

counties, towns, and districts of the State have adopted stringent measures 
of prohibition, and which are yet in force. The sentiment for temperance 
reform, though greatly retarded by the indiscreet zeal of many advocates, 
is every year more strongly demanding the purgation of the body politic and 
social of the great evils of the injurious traffic and habit. Intemperance is 
held to be a matter of legislative control. 

Among the laws most significant of the growth of sentiment toward the 
determined eradication of the most flagrant forms of vice from society is one 
recently enacted making gambling a felony to both the gamester and the 
keeper of the gambling-house, or to any one in the employ of the latter. 
With such laws upon our statute books, together with the ample and splendid 
asylums for the insane, the feeble-minded, the deaf and dumb, the blind, 
and our improved and liberal school law, the Commonwealth of Kentucky 
may proudly be ranked with the governments most advanced in all that rep- 
resents the benevolence and humanity of modern civilization. 

In 1884, a noted presidential campaign of our historic period came off. 
The nominees of the Democratic national convention were Grover Cleve- 
land for president and Thomas A. Hendricks for vice-president; of the 
Republican, James G. Blaine and John A. Logan; of the Greenback- Anti- 
Monopoly, Benjamin F. Butler and A. M. West ; of the Prohibition, John 
P. St. John and William Daniel. The popular vote in Kentucky was : For 
the Democratic ticket, 152,961; Republican, 118,122; Greenback, 1,693; 
Prohibition, 3,139. In the United States it was: For the Democratic, 
4,911,017; Republican, 4,848,334; Greenback, 133,825; Prohibition, 151,- 
809. The electoral vote for Cleveland and Hendricks summed up two 
hundred and nine, against one hundred and eighty-two for Blaine and Logan 
and none for the other tickets. 

On the 4th of March, 1885, Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks 
were installed president and vice-president of the United States, inaugurating 
the first Democratic administration in power since the retirement of James 
Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge and the accession of Lincoln and 
Hamlin, on the 4th of March, 1861 — a period of twenty-four years of 
Republican administration. 

Of the citizens appointed to important offices, Federal and State, by 
President Cleveland, and accepting service, were Judge Milton J. Durham, 
first comptroller of the treasury at Washington; Charles D. Jacob, minister 
to the United States of Colombia ; Boyd Winchester, minister to Switzer- 
land; E. A. Buck, minister to Peru; Attilla Cox, Hunter Wood, James F. 
Robinson, and Thomas S. Bronston, collectors of internal revenue ; J. Cripps 
Wickliffe, United States attorney for the district of Kentucky, and Thomas 
C. Bell, as':istant attorney; John T. Gathright, receiver of customs; Andrew 
Jackson Gross, United States marshal for Kentucky; Don Carlos Buell, 
pension agent; Thomas H. Taylor, superintendent of the canal, and Judge 
C. W. West, governor of L^tah. 



auditor's report of 1885. 781 

Vice-President Hendricks suddenly dying in ofifice, on the 251!! of 
November, 1885, less than nine months after his inauguration, John Sher- 
man, Republican, was elected by the United States Senate to preside over 
that body in his stead, on its assembling in December. 

The auditor for the period 1883-85 sets forth very clearly the existence 
of certain defects in our laws for the assessment and collection of revenues, 
and suggests very obvious and practical remedies in the same report, 
and also in the draft of an improved revenue bill, which was carefully 
prepared under his direction and submitted to the legislative session 
of 1885-86 as the basis for a new law. In this last report, the financial 
statement of the auditor shows that June 30, 1885, there was a balance in 
the treasury of $122,311, which, adding total receipts for the year, $3,323,- 
055, makes the sum of $3,445,367 in the treasury. Disbursements for the 
same year to June 30, 1885, were $2,919,779, leaving a balance of $525,- 
587. This balance was credited: To the general expense fund, $35,812; 
to reserve to meet bank loan, $200,000; to the sinking fund, $180,896 ; to 
the school fund, $108,879. But of the total receipts, $512,500 was derived 
from the sale of bonds, as ordered, leaving only $2,810,555 actual receipts 
from revenue. Of the expenditures, $300,000 was paid to banks, making 
the actual expenditures for the government $2,619,779. At the same 
date, June 30, 1885, there were of unpaid claims $146,000, and of unpaid 
balances upon appropriations made by the previous Legislature $182,- 
997. So, instead of a net balance of $35,812, as above, there was an 
actual deficit of $293,185. The auditor but reiterates that these ever- 
recurring deficits have their causes in the shrinkage of values under defect- 
ive revenue laws and their still more defective execution in the assessment 
of property. 

From the statistics of the census of 1880, some interesting conclusions 
are reached, which throw much light upon the growth of population and 
wealth. When we consider the very large emigration from Kentucky of its 
native-born people and the steady natural increase of her population, with 
the very small comparative additions from other States and foreign countries, 
we note that the fecundity of the Kentuckians is most remarkable, and, 
perhaps, not surpassed by any other community in the world. Of 1,648,690 
population, 1,402,612 are native born, 186,561 are immigrants from other 
States, and 59,517 from foreign countries, or 245,078 immigrants in all. 
The total number of persons born in Kentucky, and resident beyond the 
State, as shown by the census of 1880, amounted to about 400,000. This 
statement, of course, includes the colored race. The following figures 
will show the steady and healthy increase of population each decade, 
since 1790: The population in 1790 was 73,677; in 1800, 220,955; ^^ 
1810, 406,511; in 1820, 564,135; in 1830, 687,917; in 1840, 779,828; 
in 1850,982,405; in i860, 1,155,684; in 1870, 1,321,011; in 1880, 
1,648,690. 



782 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Table Showing the Relative Production, as Compared With Other States, of 
Certain Agricultural Staples in Kentucky, in Successive Decades. 



ARTlClyES. 



Wheat 

Maize 

Rye 

Tobacco 

Flax 

Hemp 

Cotton 

Swine 

Mules 

Home ( or household) manufactures 



1840. 



First. 

Second. 

Fourth. 

Second. 

Third. 



Eleventh. 
Second. 
Second. 
Third. 



1850. 



Ninth. 
First. 

Second. 

First. 

First. 



i860. 



Second. 
Second. 



Ninth. 

Fifth. 
Second. 
Third. 
First. 



Fourth. 
Second. 
Second. 



1S70. 



Eighth. 

Sixth. 

Fifth. 

First. 

Eighth. 

First. 

Twelfth. 

Fifth. 

Third. 

Third. 



Thus it seems that Kentucky has long stood first in the production of 
hemp, by the advantage of her fertile bluegrass soil; and by the stimulus 
given to the growth of white burley tobacco, she has taken precedence in 
the production of this staple article. 

A source of wealth and industry of inestimable value for indefinite years 
in the future has been opened up through the instrumentality of the State 
Geological Bureau. Public attention was directed to the importance of the 
superior mineral and timber resources of Kentucky under the administra- 
tion of Professor N. S. Shaler, as chief of this department of exploration. 
The interest was continued and steadily increased under the enterprising 
and able management of Professor John.R. Procter, the successor of Pro- 
fessor Shaler. In connection with the regular duties of his office, as chief 
of the Geological Bureau, Professor Procter has given attention to the work 
of advertising abroad the advantages of Kentucky, as an attractive land 
for the settlement of emigrants and the investment of capital from abroad. 
Under his intelligent direction, the features of geological formations, the 
diversity and value of soils, and the distribution of many natural sources of 
wealth were indicated upon State and county maps for the convenience of 
the public. The results of this work have been to bring a large amount 
of foreign capital for investment in our midst, to locate quite a number oi 
colonies and individuals from other States and from foreign countries, and 
to give quite an impetus to many new industries within the borders of our 
Commonwealth. Professor Procter is a native Kentuckian, born in Mason 
county, and reared there to manhood. He continued to serve at the head 
of the Geological Survey until the termination of the existence of the 
bureau in 1893, during the administration of Governor Brown. 



IMPORTANT EVENTS OF 1886 TO i8q2. 



783 



OHAPTEE XXXII. 

(1886-1892.) 

INCLUSIVE OF THE CENTENNIAL YEAR OF KENTUCKY. 



Barriers to constitutional changes. 

Chafing of the people under the 
same. 

Devices to solve the difficulties. 

Plan adopted by the Legislature, 
1885-86. 

The results satisfactory in 18S7. 

Also in the second ballot, 1889. 

Legislature provides for a conven- 
tion. 

Administration of Governor Knott. 

Act permitting the acquisition of 
lands by the United States Govern- 
ment. 

Other acts of 1885-86. 

Reform of the revenue laws. 

Construction of the same by the 
courts. 

Party State conventions, 1887. 

Election of the Democratic ticket. 

Board of Equalization provided. 

Defalcation of Treasurer Tate. 

Action of the Legislature on same. 

Stephen G. Sharp appointed treas- 
urer. 

State inspector and examiner. 

Treasurer Sharp, resigning, is suc- 
ceeded b}' Henry S. Hale. 

Presidential election, 1888. 

Harrison and Morton elected. 

Centennial of the United States 
Government, 1S89. 



People's party organized. 

Decision of the boundary of Ken- 
tucky. 

Terrible cyclone in Louisville, 1S90. 

Great epidemic of la grippe. 

The " Tyler grippe," 1S43. 

Constitutional Convention sits. 

The work of the convention set forth 
in an address to the people of Ken- 
tucky. 

Results of late geological survey. 

Coal and iron in South-eastern Ken- 
tucky. 

Other natural resources of wealth. 

Products of mining ; reports. 

Charles J. Norwood. 

Increase of manufactures and wealth. 

W. W. Longmoor. 

Administration of Governor Buckner. 

Bureau of agriculture. 

Munificent charities of Kentucky. 

State election in 1S91. 

Ed Porter Thompson. 

Administration of Governor Brown. 

John Young Brown. 

Centennials of the State and of the 
nation. 

John W. Headley. 

Celebration of the State centennial. 

W. J. Hendricks. 

L. C. Norman. 

W. H. Bartholomew. 



The people of the State were chafing under the restrictive provisions of 
the constitution of 1850 against any future change. The failure at the 
polls in 1884 to register the requisite proportion of votes, though the 
majority in favor was large, was piquantly felt. The sentiment for a 
change had grown for years, with a sense of its necessity. The framers of 
the fundamental law, in their very earnest desire to discourage agitation, 
had builded less wisely than they would have done had they known the 
future. 



784 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

As the barriers to popular adjustment seemed the more formidable, 
impatience under such restraint became more manifest. One generation 
had no right to assume superior wisdom, and to fetter the sovereignty of 
the next. Various devices for a solution of the difficulty were suggested ; 
some favored cutting the Gordian knot by calling a sovereignty convention 
of delegates from the people, without respect to constitutional forms. This 
would have been but revolution at the ballot-box. It would have been 
justifiable, but only as a last resort. 

Finally, during the session of 1885-86, the General Assembly enacted 
that the question of calling a convention for framing a new constitution 
for the State be submitted at the State election in August, 1887 ; and that 
a registry of the voters be made previous thereto, to ascertain and fix the 
number of qualified voters in Kentucky. The method hitherto of enu- 
meration included all males over twenty-one years of age, a large percentage 
of whom were annually absent from the polls. All efforts to secure a 
majority of such a count of the polls had failed. It was correctly assumed 
that, if through negligence or indifference on the day of election, a large 
percentage would fail to exercise the privilege of suffrage, as great a pro- 
portion would neglect to register. The assumption was well taken, and 
this very proper and just device proved a final and satisfactory solution. 
The results of the election showed that there were 162,557 votes in favor, 
and 49,795 against, 65,956 not voting. A majority of all the qualified votes 
as registered were shown to be in favor of a Constitutional Convention. 

In compliance with constitutional forms, the question was a second time 
submitted at the State election on the first Monday in August, 1889; a like 
favorable expression of the popular will was given. In response to this 
expression, and as required by the constitution, the Legislature, during the 
session of 1889-90, provided for the election of one hundred delegates, 
one from each representative district, and for these to meet in convention 
at Frankfort on Tuesday, the 8th day of September, to frame a new con- 
stitution for the State. The history of this convention and its proceedings t 
marks an interesting epoch. | 

During the administration of Governor Knott, J. P. Thompson, John 
D. Young and A. R. Boone were appointed and served as railroad com- 
missioners ; John F. Davis, of Shelby county, was made commissioner of 
agriculture. 

The Legislature which adjourned May 18, 1886, passed an act granting ! 
the consent of the State to the acquisition by the United States Government I 
of certain lands bordering on navigable streams, especially on Green and 
Barren rivers, for the purposes of improving the same for navigation. In 
response to the growing dissatisfaction of working convict labor in compe- 1 

tition with free, and the reports of the cruel treatment of the prisoners at | 
the coal mines, a law was passed prohibiting the employment of the convicts j^ 
at such labor, after the expiration of the contracts then in force. An appro- 



ELECTION OF 1887. 785 

priation of seven thousand dollars from the treasury oix^he State, for the 
construction of a Training School for colored teachers, and two thousand 
dollars annually for the maintenance of the same, was made. This was 
supplemented from other sources. An eligible suburban site at Frankfort 
was selected for the location, and a neat and commodious building erected. 
Since that time a successful Normal School, with modern equipments and 
features, has been conducted by a faculty of trained colored teachers, 
under the lead of President Jackson. 

Under the reforms of assessment and revenue inaugurated by Auditor 
Hewitt, relief came barely in time to save the treasury from the annual 
depletions, so repeatedly annoying. At the meeting of the last General 
Assembly, the report of the treasurer showed a deficit of $293,185.52. 
The total assessment of taxable property for the State was $390,827,963, 
in 1885. Under the effects of the amendatory legislation in 1887 it was 
$483,497,690. This increase added $180,000 to the general expense fund, 
and $220,000 to the school fund, or $400,000 in all to the receipts of the 
treasury. The results show that one-half the property of the State was 
excepted to elude taxation, under some evasive pretext. 

About this time the Court of Appeals held, in a decision, that all laws 
exempting private property from taxation were unconstitutional. Under this 
decision, much property which hitherto had paid no taxes, under the plea of 
exemption by special law, or by inference of law and usage, was compelled 
to bear its due proportion of the public expenses. In some cases the ques- 
tion arose as to what limitation to the term "private property" should be 
given. The most important test case that came before the courts for a prec- 
edent was that of the Louisville Water Works Company. This company 
was separately incorporated; but the stock was owned, all or nearly all, and 
the directors elected, by the city. It was held by the management to be 
public property, and suffered suit for the collection of taxes claimed for a 
series of years. The last court of resort finally held that the property of 
the Water Works Company must be classed as private, and subject to taxa- 
tion as other private property. 

The Democratic State Convention assembled at Louisville on the 4th 
day of May, 1887. The nominations were: For governor, S. B. Buckner; 
for lieutenant-governor, James W. Bryan; for auditor, Fayette Hewitt; 
for treasurer, James W. Tate; for attorney-general, P. W. Hardin; for 
superintendent of public instruction, J. D, Pickett; for register of the 
land ofifice, T. H. Corbett. The Republican Convention nominated in 
opposition to these: For governor, W. O. Bradley; for lieutenant-governor, 
Matt O'Doherty ; for auditor, R. D. Davis; for treasurer, J. R. Puryear; 
for attorney-general, John W. Feland ; for superintendent of public in- 
struction, W. H. Childers; for register of the land office, T. J. Tinsley. 
At the election, in August, the Democratic candidate for governor received 
a majority of sixteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven votes. 

50 



786 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

This was about tvventy-five thousand less than the average majorities in 
similar State elections for the previous twenty years. There were some 
elements of growing discontent for some time apparent in the party, and 
the sentiment of approval did not heartily respond to the action of the con- 
vention. On the Republican side, the canvass was conducted under the 
able and aggressive leadership of the nominee for Governor, and waged 
actively to its close. There were nominations made by the Prohibition and 
Union Labor parties, in the same contest ; these received but few and 
scattered votes. 

In furtherance of revenue reform, the Legislature, which met December 
31, 1887, and adjourned May 4, 1888, passed an act creating a State board 
of equalization, before which all annual assessments of property for taxa- 
tion by counties should be submitted for revision. 

On the 20th of March, the governor sent a message to the Legislature, 
announcing that he had suspended from office Treasurer Tate, and that a 
large deficit had been found in his accounts. This intelligence was a shock 
of surprise to the public. In twenty years Tate had been nominated and 
elected by his party to this office for ten successive terms. No name was 
more familiar throughout the State, and no official had ever a deeper hold 
on the confidence of the public. "Honest Dick Tate" had become a 
familiar household phrase, and there was never a difficulty in his making the 
bond of three hundred thousand dollars required by law. 

It was soon known that Tate had escaped and fled the country several 
days before. A reward of five thousand dollars for his capture was promptly 
made public, but no trace of his flight was discovered. An act of the Gen- 
eral Assembly was immediately passed, authorizing the governor to appoint 
a successor. Stephen G. Sharp, of Lexington, was named for the vacancy, 
and at once installed in the office. The Senate resolved itself into a court 
of impeachment, and went through the forms of trial. The officers of 
State were summoned as witnesses ; the fugitive ex-treasurer was found 
guilty, and formally deposed from office. 

On March 31st, the governor appointed a committee to examine the 
accounts of Tate. After a full investigation, the report made to the Legis- 
lature through the governor showed that the defalcations had been running 
a series of years, as far back as 1876. The total amount reached the sum 
of $247,128.50. As a partial offset to this sum, there were found in the 
vaults of the treasury due-bills to the amount of $59,782.80, showing that 
he had not only been diverting the public money to his personal use, but 
had loaned it freely to importuning friends. For the purpose of effecting a 
settlement, and ascertaining the final extent of the liability of his bonds- 
men, the Legislature created a commission to be filled by the appointment 
of the governor, which entered upon its duties in May. After realizing 
from all available sources, it was found that the deficit for which the sureties 
would be held responsible was about $174,000. 



CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST TREASURER TATE. 787 

In June criminal proceedings were begun, and an indictment was 
brought against Tate for embezzlement under several counts. To guard 
against such contingencies in the future, the Legislature passed an act 
creating the office of State inspector and exrminer. This official, ap- 
pointed by the governor, must annually examine the management and con- 
dition of the accounts of the auditor and treasurer, and of all other heads 
of public departments and institutions having charge and disbursement of 
the funds of the State. He must also be present at the monthly settlement 
between the auditor and treasurer, and report to the governor his findings 
in all of these inspections and investigations. 

State Treasurer Sharp, after some months of service, resigned his office, 
and Henry S. Hale, of Graves county, was appointed to fill out the remain- 
der of his term. To this date of 1895, nothing definite is known to the 
public of the wanderings of the unfortunate ex-treasurer. Among those to 
whom James W. Tate was long and intimately known, while lamenting and 
abhorring the crime of embezzlement of the public funds, the opinion is 
charitably held that, in the beginning, the great wrong was not premedi- 
tated. For thirty years he had lived in the confidence of his fellow citizens, 
in social, religious, business and official life, without a blemish upon his 
name. Amiable and genial in disposition, accommodating in spirit and 
prudent in counsel, he made many warm friendships. No citizen as well 
known in private and public life in Kentucky was more respected; 
certainly no one such had fewer enemies. It is not strange that so many 
are ready to drop the mantle of charity over the first intention, and to 
lament the weakness which in the end became a great crime. He yielded 
too ready indulgence to importunate friends, until, involved in liabilities 
from unpaid loans of money from the treasury beyond his means to restore, 
or longer to conceal, when exposure and dishonor became inevitable, he 
boldly robbed the treasury to provide against the contingencies of poverty 
in exile, and evaded the penalty by becoming a refugee from avenging law. 
The presidential contest came off on the first Tuesday in November, 
1888, resulting in the election of Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, president, 
and Levi P. Morton, of New York, vice-president of the United States, by 
the Republican party, over Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman, the 
nominees of the Democratic party. The defeat of Cleveland was unex- 
pected, and a great disaster to the latter party. Its leaders had sustained 
the organization and alignment of the historic Democratic party in the face 
of defeat, for twenty-four successive years. In 1884, Mr. Cleveland, by 
the prominence he had won as the Governor of the State of New York, was 
chosen as the most available candidate of his party for the presidency and 
elected. This victory was won against the Republican party with a trained 
and organized array of one hundred thousand office-holders in fortified 
possession. The election of Mr. Cleveland reversed this army in posses- 
sion, and brought its full strength to his support in 1888. With such an 



788 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

advantage it was expected that success in the second campaign was reason- 
ably assured. The disappointment was most severely felt in Kentucky and 
the South. 

For years past a growing discontent manifested itself among the labor 
elements throughout the country, under a claim of the intolerable burdens 
of taxation imposed in insidious forms upon them by class legislation. The 
rapid accumulations of enormous wealth in the hands of the favored few, 
and the impoverishment of the great industrial masses, in an era of marvel- 
ous growth, are viewed as evidences of wrong in the policy of government 
and in its legislation. Out of this has grown widespread discontent with 
the leadership and principles of both the great opposing Republican and 
Democratic parties. With the agitations for remedies and reforms, several 
organizations have sprung up among the farmers and workingmen of vari- 
ous orders from time to time. Of these, two organizations of the farmers 
in Kentucky, the Wheel, and the Farmers' Alliance, in 1889, merged into 
one body, styled the "Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union." At first 
this labor movement was not designed to be political, so much as to benefit 
the fraternity, materially and socially. The venality of legislation and the 
prostitution of the powers of government, however, it was claimed, had be- 
come so odious and oppressive to the children of toil, that they were forced 
to organize for defense and protection against the moneyed powers. The 
Alliance and Union offered the opportunity ; it asserted itself in politics, 
controlling the elections in several States, and threatening further control 
in State and national politics. In sympathy, and with a common interest 
and purpose, the labor leagues of the cities and industrial centers have 
allied with the farmers and formed the People's party. Already this party 
has succeeded in electing senators and representatives in the Congress of 
the United States, and members of the Constitutional Convention and of 
the Legislature in Kentucky. It promises to become a formidable factor 
in the presidential election of 1892, having placed a ticket in the national 
field. Candidates for the next Congress are nominated in several of the 
districts of Kentucky. 

The year 1889 was the first Centennial of the government of the United 
States. The first Congress assembled and the first president was installed 
in office under the Federal Constitution adopted one hundred years ago. 
On the 30th day of April, 1789, Washington, having been duly elected, was 
inaugurated the chief magistrate of the nation. On the 30th day of April, 
1889, this memorable event was appropriately honored in the city of New 
York. Kentucky, with her sister commonwealths, was represented on the 
occasion in the presence of her governor and his staff, of many patriotic 
citizens, and a portion of her military forces and equipment. In the ages 
to follow, this centenary epoch will be celebrated as one of the most cher- 
ished in the memories and hearts of the American people. 

In this year the United States Supreme Court rendered a decision in 



THE CYCLONE OF 1890. • 789 

favor of the claim of Kentucky to Green River Island, in the Ohio river, 
nearly five miles long and one-half mile in width, containing about two 
thousand acres. According to the description by its boundaries, it would 
belong to Indiana, but when Kentucky became a State, the main channel 
ran north of the island, and the jurisdiction and boundary of Kentucky 
then extended to low-water mark on the north side of the channel, embrac- 
ing the island. These facts, as well as the long continued jurisdiction of 
Kentucky, over the island, were decreed conclusive. The boundary line 
of Kentucky, established at the time of her admission into the Union, could 
not be changed by any subsequent changes in the conformation of the 
river. 

On the 27th of March, 1890, a fearful tornado passed through Kentucky, 
taking the city of Louisville in its path. The elements seemed to gather in 
force for their destructive sweep through the State at a point near Smith- 
land, on the Ohio river, above the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumber- 
land. The northerly track of the tornado passed through the counties of 
Livingston, Crittenden, Union, Webster, McLean, Daviess, Hancock, Breck- 
inridge, and Meade. Parallel to it on the south, another track of destruction 
lay eastward in the adjoining counties of Lyon, Caldwell, Christian, Muh- 
lenberg, Ohio, and Grayson. The two columns of storm-forces seemed to 
come together in Meade and to enter Jefferson county with gathered power 
for a descent upon the city of Louisville. The number of killed in the 
counties thus traversed was reported at sixty, and the wounded at over 
two hundred. Forests of timber, farm houses, barns and outbuildings, 
fencing and other property were laid waste, and desolate ruins in every 
county marked the path of destruction. A partially spent force detached 
from the main columns of the storm reached the counties of Allen and 
Barren and did some serious damage there. But the cities of the falls 
were fated to receive the fullest fury of the tempest. The united columns 
of the tornado, gathering new strength, swept over the rugged slopes of 
Muldraugh and across the valley from the foot-hills, to break upon the 
city, at the hour of early night-fall. It was half-past eight o'clock in the 
evening when the first signals of approach were observed. The angry 
and turbulent motion of the clouds, as they seemed to seethe and boil over- 
head, gave uneasiness to some. Above the horizon everywhere the dark- 
ened sky was lurid with electric flame, alternated every minute with vivid 
and blinding flashes of lightning, followed by answering peals of thunder 
that caused the city to tremble to its foundations. As the clouds ap- 
proached the border of the city they were funnel-shaped with the rotary 
motion so ominous of the approach of a cyclone. A terrific gust of wind 
swept through the city, wrenching the creaking signs, rattling the roofs of 
metal, and toppling over a tree here and there. After a lull of five minutes 
another gust followed, fiercer than the first. The dread of suspense came 
upon many, as the people, after the first vibrating shocks of an earthquake, 



79° HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

in the terror of suspense, tremblingly wait to learn if the worst is yet to 
come. It was but a moment's interval of paralyzing fear, and the worst 
came with appalling waste and death, never to be forgotten by any citizen, 
nor in the history of the Falls City. 

The great black column, with its inverted base in the clouds above and 
its trunk reaching to the earth, whirling onward, swaying to and fro and 
bounding over the valley, touched here and there a spot and tore in frag- 
ments every perishable thing that fell beneath its fury. For a few moments, 
in passing, it swooped down upon the pretty suburb of Parkland, leaving 
the marks of its wrath, for time only to efface. At a bound, leaping over 
the border, it fell in merciless wrath upon the city of Louisville. It tarried 
but a brief space of fifteen minutes within the metropolitan limits. In this 
short time the ruin was wrought. From the south-west limit the track of the 
tempest coursed entirely through in a north-eastwardly line, for over one 
mile, crossing Broadway street about Eighteenth and Twentieth, and passed 
out at the river wharf, near the foot of Sixth and Ninth. In width it 
embraced three squares, or about three hundred yards. It swept over 
forty squares of buildings, unroofing some houses, blowing down the walls 
of others, and utterly wrecking many. One thousand buildings were more 
or less in ruins, and the streets everywhere piled and barricaded with the 
debris of general wreck. The terrors of the awful night that followed were 
partially described in the daily press of the time ; but no pen-picturing 
could do justice to such scenes. The wildest rumors filled the city. The 
belief was, in the midst of the confusion, that the wounded and dead were 
numbered by the thousands. Parents searched for children, husbands and 
wives for each other, and many for kindred and friends, not knowing but 
the missing ones were among the dead or injured. The greatest calamity 
was at Falls City Hall, on Market street, near Eleventh, where hundreds of 
citizens had assembled but half an hour before for an evening's entertain- 
ment. The structure fell in upon them, roof and walls, burying all in the 
common wreck. Three-fourths of those who were killed in the city met 
their deaths here. It was found in a day or so that only some four or five 
hundred received personal injuries, of whom less than one hundred were 
fatally hurt. 

Every phase of human nature, from its forms of divinest virtue to the 
lowest depths of forbidden vice, found occasion for its display. Before the 
dawn of light on the following day, busy thieves were at work, skulking 
and pilfering among the broken timbers and furniture, the safes and drawers 
of deserted houses, and the bodies of the dead, for money and valuables. 
It was impossible for the police force to guard the entire stricken district 
and the city at large. The military were called upon to reinforce the police 
arm; and the Louisville Legion, three hundred strong, was assembled at 
the Armory. For a week or two, divisions of this body of State troops re- 
lieved each other through the twenty-four hours of each day, patroling the 



EPIDEMIC OF LA GRIPPE. 79! 

district, until the streets were cleared and some degree of order restored. 
On the other hand, heroic humanity was even more brave and active in the 
work of relief. The usual expressions of sympathy and tenders of aid came 
in speedily from all points abroad ; but the citizens at home met in confer- 
ence, and resolved that they alone would care for the unfortunate and 
suffering, without assistance from the outside. On the early morning after 
the dread calamity, a meeting was held at the Board of Trade rooms, and 
twenty thousand dollars contributed on the spot. Committees were 
appointed, and this sum was soon increased to one hundred and fifty-six 
thousand dollars, and through committees, relief and aid, wherever needed, 
were continued until all urgent wants were supplied. Within one year the 
work of rebuilding and repair restored the district to order and industry, as 
before the cyclone. Among the worthy citizens who were killed outright, 
or died after from injuries received, we may mention the names of Rev. S. 
Barnwell, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, and his little son ; J. B. 
McCoUum, Capt. Theo. Engelmeier, J. B. Schildt, August Fleisher, Christ 
Miller, Prof. Gustave Kutzler, Sr., Prof. Andrew Steubling, John Emerick, 
Mrs. Belle Patterson, Mrs. Carrie Baker, Sister Mary Pius, Dr. Kalfus 
and others. 

In the later months of the winter of 1889-90, and the earlier spring, 
there appeared in virulent form the most insidious and fatal malady that has 
visited this country in its history. It suddenly manifested itself in many 
parts of the country as an epidemic infectious disease, characterized by 
inflammation of the membranes of the respiratory organs, often involving the 
gastric membranes. In its initial stages the symptoms are so nearly like 
those of ordinary influenza as to mislead the subject to treat with indiffer- 
ence what was deemed the trifling disorder of a day. It proved, however, 
far more serious than this, or even than a simple epidemic catarrh. There 
are observed often, subtle rigors, attended with hot and chilly sensations, 
alternately, accompanied with general prostration of the nervous and physi- 
cal energies. A burning dryness in the nose, throat, and chest, more labored 
respiration and diminished action of the organs of secretion are discernible. 
The symptomatic effects are varied — severe headache and greatly disordered 
stomach, with the usual appearances of an ordinary violent cold, are very 
common. The vitality of the internal organs affected directly by the irri- 
tated membranes is generally lowered, attended with more or less functional 
derangement. This condition, together with the general prostration, ren- 
ders the patient extremely sensitive to any exposure or neglect, and liable 
to dangerous relapses even when flattered with the promise of early conva- 
lescence. It is most fatal to the aged and to those suffering with constitu- 
tional debility. 

The phenomena of this disease are so marked that we are enabled to 
identify and to trace it as an epidemic plague, which has scourged the 
people of both hemispheres for centuries past. As early as 1510, we have 



792 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

accounts of a great constitutional influenza, similar in its appearances and 
its fatalities, which had its origin in the Asiatic countries, and traveled 
westward to the Atlantic. The disease is accurately described by Dr. Syd- 
enham, as he observed its ravages among the population of London in 
1675. In the year 1733 an epidemic of this distemper appeared simul- 
taneously in Brussels and London early in January. It was two weeks 
later in Paris, and a few days later in other parts of Europe, embracing 
every nation. It invaded the United States at the first approach of cold 
weather, in October following, and after traversing the North American 
continent, it appeared at Barbadoes, and in Mexico and Peru, In 1789 
and 1807 similar outbreaks of the malady, after its ravages in the East, 
occurred at New York and Philadelphia, and spread westward and south- 
ward over the Americas. At intervals of ten to twenty-five years, it has 
repeatedly invaded the United States since, always visiting Kentucky. 

In France, the name la grippe had been given this disease. The 
epidemic spread over Europe and reached the United States in violent and 
fatal type in 1843. 

John Tyler, who succeeded to the presidency on Harrison's death, in 
1841, had recently vetoed the bill for a United States bank, a measure sup- 
ported by the Whig party which had elected him. This act of alleged bad 
faith was the political sensation of the day, and public sentiment attached 
great odium to the man and to the act. Associating the plague of an 
epidemic with this visitation of political misfortune, the people in a vein 
of grim humor of revenge dropped the French "la" and substituted the 
word "Tyler," In this way the French "la grippe," was Americanized 
into " Tyler grippe ; " and the great scourge of 1843 ^^^s popularly known 
then, and since, as the "Tyler grippe," from the coincidence of the two 
events. 

The grippe reappeared in the winter of 1890-91, and again in that of 
1891-92, and on each return was attended with much the same phenomena 
and fatality as on the first visitation. An examination of the reports of 
the Health Officer for Louisville, for the three months from December i to 
March i, 1891-92, shows that the number of deaths in the city was over 
four hundred above the normal rate ; or that number from the grippe 
alone. The proportion was greater in many other cities, and especially in 
the larger cities. This would give one death from the epidemic for every 
four hundred of the population of the city. If this ratio is applied to the 
entire population of the United States, it would give about one hundred 
and fifty thousand deaths in the whole population from grippe alone, 
directly and indirectly, during each of the three seasons of its prevalence. 
Deducting one-third from this yearly number for the greater immunity of 
the country districts from the scourge, and we still have an annual abnormal 
death rate of one hundred thousand resulting from this insidious and terrible 
epidemic. In no year of our history has there been a death rate of this 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 793 

magnitude from cholera, yellow fever, or any other of the fatal maladies, 
throughout the entire United States. And yet, with stealthy tread, it has 
come and gone with less of the sensation of dread alarm and consternation. 
In its incipient stages, the symptoms are deceptive and often fatally mis- 
leading. It is mistaken for and treated as a transient influenza. The 
ground-work is laid for a serious or fatal termination before the patient is 
aware of the presence of danger. Many who survive the direct attacks 
linger in feebleness and functional disorder until the warmth of the summer 
days brings relief and deliverance, or death ends the struggle in the form 
of consumption or other constitutional disease in sympathy. Many physi- 
cians insist that great injury is done in the frequent use of alcoholic stimu- 
lants during the period of its first invasion. While great mental and physi- 
cal depression exists, this would appear a plausible remedy ; but it results 
in the sudden irritation of the kidneys, liver and intestines, converting the 
temporary stages of congestion into an inflammation, and making it a dan- 
gerous agent. They may be used with better effect in the convalescent 
stages. In cases where it proved fatal it has been observed that inflamma- 
tion of the small air tubes in the lungs or disintegrating inflammation of 
the kidneys and liver was the direct cause of death. Fatalities may be 
mainly ascribed to neglect or improper treatment ; and should this dread 
scourge revisit our land, it is to be desired that physicians and people will 
have learned to profit by the experiences of the past. 

On the 8th of September the Constitutional Convention convened at 
Frankfort. On the opening day George Washington, delegate from 
Campbell county, was made temporary presiding officer. The convention 
was then permanently organized by the election of Cassius M. Clay, Jr , 
of Bourbon county, to preside over its deliberations. The body continued 
in session until the nth of April, 1891. The draft of the new instrument 
was submitted to the people, to be voted on for ratification, on the first 
Monday in August after adjournment. Wide and marked differences of 
opinion upon the merits of the changes made were entertained, and on the 
issues very able and animated discussions were frequent and general by 
the friends on either side. The popular vote was in favor of the adoption 
of the instrument as the fundamental law of the Commonwealth, by a very 
large majority. 

As this constitutional change determined a period of forty years of 
most important events in the history of the country, it is worthy of more 
than passing notice from the student of political economy. It was an era 
of wonderful activity in intellectual life, in inventive art, in industrial enter- 
prise, in progress of sentiment, and in accretion of wealth. The changes 
in the new from the old Constitution of 1850, and the amendatory pro- 
visions added, may well illustrate the evolutions of the interval of time 
between. A committee, composed of Delegates Bennett H, Young, Curtis 
F. Burnam, William H. Mackoy, Robt. Rodes, Samuel J. Pugh, Frank P. 



794 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Straus, H. R. Bourland, G. B. Swango, C. T, Allen, S. E, DeHaven and 
Wm. R. Ramsey, was appointed by the convention before its adjournment 
to prepare and publish an address to accompany the instrument in its dis- 
tribution over the State. This address ably and briefly sets forth the plea 
for the new constitution, and summarizes its most important features of 
reform. It is given in full as follows : 

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. 



The convention to amend tlie present Constitution was called after twenty 
)-ears of agitation and in obedience to a well-defined popular demand for a 
revision of your organic law. As your representatives, the members of this con- 
vention, after a session of one hundred and ninety-nine legislative days, have 
prepared, and now submit for your approval, the accompanying instrument. It 
is not assumed that it is perfect, or that it represents the views of each member 
on every subject; but after full discussion and mature deliberation, it is offered 
as the best judgment of the bod}-. 

In many portions of the State there has been severe criticism as to length of 
time consumed in the preparation of the instrument. A little investigation will 
show that some of these complaints are not well founded, and that in many States 
more time has been consumed in framing these most important of all laws. 

The last convention in Illinois sat one hundred and fifty-three days, in New 
York nine months, in Ohio two hundred and fifty-three daj-s, in California one 
hundred and sixty-seven days, and in Pennsylvania during an entire year, at a 
cost to that State of $1,000,000. 

The last Legislature of Kentucky, in framing mere statutorj- laws, was in 
session one hundred and forty-nine days. 

In dealing with these fundamental provisions of government, haste would 
have been unseemly, and it was due the people of the State that every delegate, 
on every question, should have ample time to express his opinions, and from 
such discussion to formulate those great and fundamental principles essential to 
the organic law of a State such as Kentucky. 

The experience of 'forty years, gathered from the unparalleled changes in 
political and social life of this country, rendered manj- alterations in and additions 
to the Constitution not only important, but absolutely essential to good govern- 
ment. Notwithstanding this necessity for change and enlarged limitations of 
many general and special powers, a close comparison of the present and proposed 
Constitutions will show that a very large portion of the present Constitution 
passes into the new one substantially unchanged. 

The sessions of the convention were marked by no partisan political discus- 
sions. All such questions were unknown and undiscussed, and as representatives 
of all the people of the State, the universal desire was to frame a Constitution 
which -would secure the greatest good to the greatest number. 

The first question which confronted every delegate was the inhibition of 
special or local legislation. The General Assembly of 1889-90 sat one hundred 
and forty-nine days, and passed local laws, including index, covering four thou- 
sand eight hundred and ninety-three pages, with a cost to the State in printing 
of $17,223.65, and in other respects $151,014.82. The average time and cost of the 
four preceding Legislatures had been but little better. The disapproval of every 



H 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE. 795 

person in Kentucky suggested sharp and effective remedies for the evils of such 
a system of law making. Outside of all questions of economy, the demoraliza- 
tion of the I^egislature and the inequality of laws so passed had produced the 
grossest wrongs, and the demand for a change on this subject was absolute and 
universal. 

In the judgment of the delegates this has been thorough!}^ done. Legislative 
sessions have been limited to sixty days, and all special laws prohibited, where 
general laws can govern ; and on a large number of subjects w'hich concern the 
general good, under the provisions proposed, a special law is rendered impossible. 

Something of this tremendous evil will be appreciated when it is stated that 
the official report of the auditor shows that in the last ten years the General 
Assembly has been in session six hundred and eighty-nine days, or nearly one- 
iifth of that entire period^ at an average daily cost of $i,o6S, and that, had the 
General Assembly been required to pass only general laws and been permitted 
to remain in session only sixty days, as required by the proposed Constitution, 
there would have been a saving to the State in money alone in this period the 
sum of $424,164. 

It is required in the new Constitution that all acts of incorporation shall be 
obtained hereafter under general laws, and that the expense of such incorpora- 
tions shall be paid by those who seek them and who secure benefit from them. 

Another important matter is uniformity of laws applicable to counties, cities 
and towns ; now, no two of these municipal divisions in the State operate under 
the same code of laws. The tax systems, judicial forms and remedies, and govern- 
mental agencies generally, were arranged to suit the caprice or whim of the 
member who happened to represent that particular locality. A false idea of 
what has been called legislative "courtesy" allowed any member to write the 
statutes governing his own constituency. We have prepared provisions requiring 
that all such communities shall be divided into classes and shall be governed 
by general laws applicable to every member of such class throughout the State. 

Lotteries are inhibited, and all lottery charters now existing are revoked. 
These grants, in most instances secured by clandestine legislation, have inflicted 
upon the State great disgrace and upon its people incalculable loss. A single 
clause settles this evil, places Kentucky abreast of the best civilization of the age, 
and unites her in the effort to repress this unmitigated shame. 

The ballot system under the new Constitution will be fully established. 
Kentucky enjoys the distinction of being the only civilized State which retains 
the viva voce system. Experience has demonstrated the evils of the viva voce 
system, and an official secret ballot, a barrier to bribe-givers and bribe-takers, 
the palladium of an honest and unbiased expression of popiilar will, as expressed 
at the polls, is made the only method of taking the sense of the voters of the 
Commonwealth. 

The frequency of elections has been the cause of almost universal complaint. 
It is provided in this proposed Constitution that only one election of any kind 
can be held in the State or any part thereof in any one year. 

The mode of revision has been held by many to be a question of supreme im- 
portance. Amendment to the present Constitution is impossible, and to call a 
new Constitutional Convention involves at least five years' delay and large ex- 
pense. To render change a practical political impossibility was the avowed pur- 
pose of the framers of the Constitution of 1S49. 

The sections on revision in the new instrument permit three-fifths of any 
Legislature to propose at a regular session two amendments; these may be ou 



796 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

any subject, and, when ratified by a majority of the votes cast, become part of the 
Constitution. This plan avoids the expense of a convention, renders the instru- 
ment at all times capable of meeting the exigencies of the times, and yet it is so 
arranged that the Constitution can not be altered or amended without a sufficient 
period for reflection. This plan is in line with the experience and judgment of 
other States and covers the middle ground on this subject. 

The greatest menace to freedom of the people of this country is the aggrega- 
tion of capital and the aggressions, consequent upon such aggregation, upon the 
rights of the individual citizen. Corporate wealth and influence have been most 
potent in all the phases of our political affairs, and this danger has aroused the 
fears of the ablest and most patriotic of our statesmen. The State can not afford 
to commit itself to anj' policy which would keep out capital, nor, on the other 
hand, can she afford to disregard the warnings of the times and remove all limi- 
tations upon this power. In the proposed Constitution will be found such pro- 
visions as, in the judgment of your representatives, carefully guard the people's 
rights, and yet, on the other hand, grant to corporate capital all those privileges 
and rights which will justify it in the development of the superb resources of 
the State. 

Many and most serious difficulties have arisen from irrevocable grants made by 
the General Assembly. We have provided that all grants and charters of every 
kind shall in the future be held subject to the legislative will, and with the abso- 
lute right of repeal by the State. Such a provision in the past would have been 
of untold value to the citizens of the State ; and while it has been in force under 
statutory enactment since 1856, unless where expressly waived by the term of the 
act itself, which was frequently done, it has been deemed of the greatest impor- 
tance to have it incorporated in the Constitution. 

One of the most unfortunate features in the administration of Kentucky's 
government has been the inequality in taxation. Exemptions under one pretext 
or another have crept into hundreds of charters and acts, and the value of prop- 
erty thus relieved of its just proportion of taxation has reached appalling figures. 
The Constitution submitted to you confines this evil to much narrower limits, and, 
so far as practicable, puts all property upon the same basis for taxation. Should you 
accept this Constitution, all propertj- — laud, bank stock, and money — will bear its 
just share of governmental burden and assume its fair proportion of taxes, while 
securing the equal protection of law. 

Unjust local taxation and the heavy increase of the debts of counties, towns, 
and cities have been recognized in every portion of the State as great evils, fre- 
quently destructive of the highest rights of property' and leading to practical 
confiscation or absolute repudiation. A limit has been placed on all tax rates, 
and while it allows reasonable outlay in all matters requiring enterprise and 
development, it also places an impassable barrier against unwise or extravagant 
expenditures. 

State, county and other governmental machiner)- has been left practically un- 
changed, but the number of magistrates has been limited to eight in anj' county. 

The number of grand jurors has been reduced from sixteen to twelve. This 
can not, in the least, impair the efficiency of the body or the administration of 
justice, and the saving in per diem alone by this change in ten years will equal 
the entire cost of the convention. The average cost of grand juries in the State 
for the preceding two years was $69,777 ; this change will save one-fourth of this 
amount, 117,500, per annum. A three-fourths verdict of juries in civil cases has 
been allowed under legislative direction. 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE. 797 

A uniform system of courts has beeu devised. In some counties there are as 
many as four different kinds of courts, some of them with the same jurisdiction. 
The proposed change provides sufficient courts and removes the evil referred to. 
The number of judges will be only ver}' slightly increased, but they will be more 
fairly distributed, and every county in the State will have at least three terms of 
Circuit Court in each year. It was thought wise to have only one court of last 
resort, and to provide that this shall consist of enough judges to dispatch all the 
business that may be brought before it. If five judges can not do the business, 
the General Assembly can increase the number to seven ; and these for many 
years will meet every possible demand. This number may be divided into sec- 
tions, and thus accomplish the work of two courts while maintaining the uniformity 
of decision of one. 

In obedience to an almost unanimous public sentiment, the working of con- 
victs outside the penitentiary has been prohibited, and the General Assembly also 
required to establish and maintain a State Reformatory Institution for juvenile 
offenders. 

The subject of Eastern Kentucky land titles has been one of grave import to 
the whole State. There are many Virginia grants one hundred years old and yet 
unrecorded, the land covered by which has been held under patents from this State 
in some instances a centur}-, sold many times and taxes thereon paid all these long 
years by j^ersons ignorant of an adverse claim. And yet these ancient grants re- 
main as a means of disquieting titles and a bar to the complete development and 
improvement of the richest mineral and timber districts in the State. Security 
of title is an essential in the progress of any country. Justice to the State and 
its long suffering people interested in this portion of the State requires a speedy 
and effective remedy. This has been given, and such provision has been made 
that in five years after the adoption of the new Constitution this great incubus 
upon the wealth and prosperity of the State will be in a fairway to be removed. 

The condition of the State is now such that it is believed that railway's can 
and will be built without the aid of local taxation, and, following the example of 
nearly all the other States of the Union, a provision has been inserted which for- 
bids cities, towns, counties, or parts thereof from voting a tax tinder anj- circum- 
stances in aid of such corporations. 

Experience seems to have demonstrated the value and importance of a Rail- 
way Commission. Repeated efforts have been made by railroads to repeal the 
statute providing for this service, and it was thought wise to give more stability 
and consequently more efficienc}' to this commission ; and its members have been 
made constitutional officers, and thereby rendered not only more independent, 
but more fearless in the guardianship of public interest. 

The cause of common school education, always of prime importance in this 
State, will, from the work of the convention, receive new strength. The direct 
tax coming to Kentucky from the general government, amounting to over |6oo,- 
000, will become part of the school fund and will restore to this great cause that 
which nearly half a century ago was, by adverse legislation, taken from this noble 
work. 

All that part of the old Constitution in conflict with the Federal Constitution 
in reference to slavery has been omitted. 

The claim has been widely made that this proposed Constitution is not only of 
extreme but of unusual detail, and unnecessarily legislative in its provisions. An 
examination will show that in the present Constitution there are about twelve 
thousand five hundred and eighty words, and in this proposed one, about twenty- 



79S HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

oue thousand words, and, therefore, it is only about sixty per cent, larger than 
that of 1849-50. 

The subjects of railroads, municipalities, revenue and taxation, corporations 
and public charities, are covered by new articles. All these have been rendered 
necessary by the chauged conditions of the State during the past forty years. 
Excluding these new matters, the proposed Constitution is shorter than the pres- 
ent one. The Constitution submitted for j-our approval is about the average length 
as that of Arkansas, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Washington, and shorter 
than that of Missouri, and ten per cent, shorter than that of Maryland. 

We have enumerated in this address, necessarily brief, a few of the more impor- 
tant changes which, in the judgment of your representatives, were demanded by the 
present condition of the State, and requisite for the furtherance of its political 
and material welfare. The whole instrument is submitted with the confident 
belief that its provisions, while not without defects and those imperfections inci- 
dent to all such work, but susceptible of change at the will of the people by its 
open clause, will secure certainly a more effective government, a more uniform 
distribution of burdens, a more economical administration of all State, county 
aud city aifairs, and a more complete protection to the common welfare. 

In i860, David Dale Owen, in his report as state geologist, wrote that 
**no complete geological map of the entire State of Kentucky could be 
made until the surveys were completed of the Bluegrass rim marked by 
Muldraugh's Hill, from Hardin and Lincoln counties on the south-east, Big 
Hill in Madison county on the south, and Bath and Lewis counties on the 
east." This broken and abrupt division belt between the lower silurian and 
carboniferous and sub-carboniferous regions must be defined and accurately 
fixed. This result State Geologist Procter claims to have accomplished. 
He has been enabled to present a map with the geological outlines and 
features complete of the State, though it will require two or three years to 
finish the details of surveys of some thirty counties. 

To 1886 and 1887, the splendid coal fields, covering the region of over 
twenty counties in East Kentucky at the head waters of the Big Sandy, 
Licking, Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, had been but partially surveyed. 
An active corps was organized and placed in this field, under the able and 
trained leadership of Prof. A. R. Crandall, and with results far exceeding 
the most sanguine expectations. In the report of 1887, Prof. Procter says 
that in addition to the coals beneath the conglomerate sandstone, forming 
the base of the coal measure proper, we have above the conglomerate, 
north of Pine mountain, sixteen hundred feet of measures, containing nine 
beds of coal of workable thickness. Between the Pine and Cumberland 
mountains there is a greater thickness of the coal measures, containing 
twelve or more workable beds. In places two and sometimes three of 
the measures are cannel coals of remarkable richness and purity. The 
largest known area of rich cannel coals is found in Eastern Kentucky, and 
the largest known area of coking coal is found in the same section ; and 
this coking coal is more advantageously located with reference to cheap and 
high grade iron ores than any other known. Cannel coal lies in sixteen of 



THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 799 

the counties of this region, some of which excels the most celebrated coals 
of this kind in Great Britain. The coking coal lies in thick beds over 
sixteen hundred square miles of territory, through Pike, Letcher, Harlan, 
Floyd, Knott, Perry, Leslie, and Bell counties. 

Rich iron ores have long been known in quantities and of value in Bath 
county, in North-eastern Kentucky, and in the Red and Kentucky river 
valleys. The large deposits of Clinton ore, dyestone and red fossil along 
the eastern base of Cumberland and Stone mountains and duplicated on 
the slopes of Powell's mountain and Walden's ridge, and in the Oriskany 
ore beds of Pine mountain, were brought more prominently to the knowl- 
edge of the public. These, together with the rich and inexhaustible fields 
of iron deposits, fronting the border line of Kentucky for one hundred 
miles, in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, began to interest the 
attention of capitalists abroad. The proximity of all the materials necessary 
to the manufacture of iron and steel, in great abundance, presented oppor- 
tunities unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The vast forest of timber 
covering this hitherto inaccessible region adds to the attraction for enter- 
prise and development. 

Large investments in mineral and timber lands, on the part of English 
and American capitalists, very soon followed the publication of these 
authentic reports of the geological survey by Professor Procter. The 
developments have been most marked in Bell county. Within two years 
the mountain village of Pineville has grown to the proportions of an infant 
city, and the city of Middlesborough, built up from the forest, to be 
peopled by thousands. The taxable wealth of Bell county has increased 
from one million to over seven million dollars. Railroads have penetrated 
this region and, tunneling the mountains, have opened to the commerce 
and traffic of the world the vast stores of natural wealth hitherto inacces- 
sible. These coking coal fields are supplying fuel for a number of furnaces 
for making iron, and large quantities are being carried to distant cities — 
even as far as St. Louis — for the gas supply of the same. ^Already six 
large coke iron blast furnaces have been completed and two others com- 
menced in this vicinity, with a total capacity for an annual product of over 
three hundred thousand tons. This is but the beginning of the develop- 
ment for South-east Kentucky. 

The improvement in the north-east, and within a radius of fifty miles 
around Ashland, has been almost as marked. Similar results appear in the 
region of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, in a notable field of iron 
ores, of which Grand Rivers is the center. Not less rapidly have the coal 
TOiines interspersed over the eleven thousand square miles of coal area in 
East Kentucky and four thousand five hundred square miles in West Ken- 
tucky been opened up, and their products added to the commerce and 
wealth of the State. 

♦Geological Report, 1890-92. 



8oo 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



The report shows that the survey has brought to knowledge the exist- 
ence of extensive deposits of fire and pottery clays of great variety and 
excellence in the counties west of the Cumberland river .and in other 
localities; lead ores and fluor-spar in Caldwell, Crittenden and Living- 
ston counties; asphalt rock, marls, cement rock, salt brine, natural gas 
and clays for making paving brick of great excellence and quantity in 

the district of Meade, Breck- 
inridge and Grayson coun- 
ties; petroleum in the Cum- 
berland counties, from Wayne 
to Barren; and building stone 
of great value in many local- 
ities. 

Associated with the geo- 
logical and mining history of 
the State is the important 
department of Inspector of 
Mines and the duties assigned 
to the same. The growth 
of the mining interests made 
necessary the creation of this 
office in 1884. In May of 
that year, Mr. Charles J. 
Norwood was appointed In- 
spector of Mines by Governor 
Knott, and has continued to 
fill the office since. 
The report of Inspector Norwood for 1891 is a reliable and interesting 
history of coal mining in Kentucky, now just emerging from its age of 
infancy. For the year ending June 30, 1890, the output of bituminous 
coal from the mines of Western Kentucky was 30,417,289 bushels; of 
South-eastern Kentucky, 17,443,689 bushels; of North-eastern Kentucky, 
10,435,071 bushels, making a total of 58,296,049. The total output of 
the same fields for the year ending June 30, 1891, was 67,610,660 bushels, 
an increase of 9,314,611 bushels. From the table of product for the last 
twenty years the output for 1870 was but 4,228,000 bushels; for 1880, 
23,657,200 bushels, and for 1890 (to December 31st), 62,078,609. This 
increase was over five hundred per cent, during the first decade and over 
two hundred per cent, the second. Four thousand nine hundred and 
forty-one persons were employed under ground in these bituminous mines 
for the year ending June, 1891, in that time producing 67,610,660 bushels 
of coal, an average of 13,706 bushels to each miner. For the year 1890 
there was produced, in addition to the above, 1,244,550 bushels of cannel 
coal and 517,750 bushels of coke from the new plants at St. Bernard and 




CHARLES J. NORWOOD. 



GOVERNOR BUCKNER S ADMINISTRATION. 



8oi 



Cumberland Valley Colliery Company. The bushel of eighty pounds and 
the ton of two thousand pounds are used in Kentucky. 

Under the impetus given in part through the enterprise awakened and 
by improved revenue enactments, the taxable wealth of the State has in- 
creased in the decade from 1880 to 1890 over $209,000,000, or more than 
sixty per cent. This was $45,000,000 more than the increase in any other 
Southern State, and 
much more than double 
the average increase in 
all these. 

During the adminis- 
tration of Governor 
Buckner, G. M. Adams 
was secretary of state, 
and C. Y. Wilson served 
as commissioner of agri- 
culture, Messrs. I. A. 
Spaulding, J. F. Hagar 
and W. B. Fleming 
were appointed railroad 
commissioners. James 

B. Beck having died in 
office at Washington, 
while United States sen- 
ator, May 3, 1890, on 
the 17th of the same 
month John G. Carlisle 
was elected to succeed him. W. S. Pryor, Joseph H. Lewis, W. H. Holt, 
and Caswell Bennett, of the Court of Appeals, and W. H. Yost, Joseph 
Barbour, and J. H. Brent, the latter recently appointed by the governor to 
the vacancy occasioned by the death of Van B. Young, of the Superior 
Court, constituted the last courts of the highest resort under the provisions 
of the old constitution. Fayette Hewitt, having resigned as auditor, Luke 

C. Norman was appointed in his stead and Henry F. Duncan named to 
succeed the latter as commissioner of the insurance bureau. Woodford 
Longmoor having died during his term of office, A. Addams was appointed 
to the vacancy created in the office of clerk of Court of Appeals. Sam 
Hill was made adjutant-general of the State under the administration of 
Governor Buckner, C. J. Norwood inspector of mines, and W. J. Macy 
inspector of public trusts. Mrs. Mary Brown Day was elected librarian by 
the Legislature in 1890, and again in 1892. 

One of the most marked features of improvement during this administra- 
tive term was in the management of the Bureau of Agriculture, under the 
efficient and faithful direction of Commissioner Charles Y. Wilson. Through 

51 




HENRY S. HALE. 



802 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



the judicious selection and distribution of seeds, the dissemination of infor- 
mation when needed and most appreciated, and the holding of Farmers' 
Institutes at convenient points in the State, a new impetus and life were 
given to agriculture and live stock interests, resulting in permanent improve- 
ment and progress in many 
localities. The intelligent 
skill and enterprise shown by 
Commissioner Wilson in his 
department were at once 
creditable to himself, and of 
inestimable value to the Com- 
monwealth. He has shown 
the possibilities of good 
through the agency of this 
bureau, for future time. 

The General Assembly of 
1889-90, in one of those pe- 
riodic affectations of economy 
for which there is no defense 
of rational plea, reduced the 
tax rate for general expenses 
from twenty to fifteen cents 
on the one hundred dollars 
of assessed property. The in- 
evitable increase of expenses 
attendant on the Constitutional Convention, to convene in a few months, 
and the fact of an existing deficit of over two hundred thousand dollars in 
the treasury, had no effect to deter the body. By rare coincidence the sum 
of six hundred thousand dollars of direct tax money, expended by the State 
during the late war, was refunded by the Government in 1891. This was 
set apart by the Constitutional Convention for the benefit of the school fund, 
the State executing bond and paying the interest annually. The principal 
was put in the treasury for general State expenses. The relief from this 
source saved the Commonwealth from a serious embarrassment for a time ; 
but a result was that, in July, 1892, the treasurer announced an exhausted 
treasury. 

Few, if any, States in the Union have provided so munificently for 
their unfortunate citizens as Kentucky in proportion to her taxable prop- 
erty. The official reports for 1889 show that in the three insane asylums, 
at Lexington, Anchorg,ge and Hopkinsville, there were two thousand five 
hundred and sixty-three subjects of lunacy being cared for, and one hun- 
dred and eighty-five outside, at a cost to the treasury of $377,928.31. Of 
idiots not confined, and distributed throughout the counties, there were one 
thousand four hundred and eighteen, for the support of whom the 




ED PORTER THOMPSON. 



CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. 



803 



State paid in that year $100,021.88. There were, beside these, one hun- 
dred and one inmates of the Blind Asylum, at a cost of $28,037.67; one 
hundred and sixty-eight in the Deaf and Dumb Institute, at $58,152.23, and 
one hundred and forty-six in the Feeble Minded Institute, at $29,170.69. 
Thus it appears that four 
thousand five hundred and 
eighty-one dependent citizens 
were beneficiaries of the char- 
ities of the Commonwealth 
at a total cost to the treasury 
of $593,310.78, about one in 
every four hundred of the 
population. The cost per 
head of the insane in public 
charge is about $134 ; of the 
blind, $277 ; of the deaf and 
dumb, $346, and of the feeble 
minded, $200. These are the 
charges outside of the costs 
of the six handsome and com- 
modious buildings erected by 
the State on the sites selected 
for the several institutions. 
The total disbursements of 
revenue from the treasury for 
the fiscal year ending June 30, 
1890, were $3,811,248.32; of 
this amount near $1,530,000 
was paid out for education in the schools of the State. Adding to the 
latter amount the sum expended for public charities, and together they 
make fifty-five per cent, of all the expenses of the Commonwealth. 

It is to the credit of the management of the Feeble Minded Institute 
that the first successful efforts were here made to educate and train these 
unfortunates to labor and for self-help. Many have been thus returned to 
their families and homes capable of self-support. The successful work of 
Dr. Stewart, through years of experiment and patient training, has given 
the institution a reputation throughout this country and in Europe. 

The Kentucky Institution for the Education of the Blind was estab- 
lished fifty-one years ago, the sixth of the kind in the United States. B. 
B. Huntoon has presided over its management as superintendent since 
1871, and with eminent fitness and efficiency. For the year ending Octo- 
ber 30, 1 89 1, the report shows that there were enrolled one hundred and 
twenty-one pupils in charge, twenty-five of whom were colored. Besides 
the main structure, there is a separate building for the colored and one for 




GOVERNOR JOHN YOUNG BROWN. 



8o4 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



the American Printing House for the BHnd, with other necessary improve- 
ments, all erected at a cost of $110,000. In this printing house are pub- 
lished books and literature in raised letters for the blind in many States of 
the Union. Under the superintendence of men of ability and experience, 

the success of the Insti- 
tution for the Deaf and 
Dumb, at Danville, and 
of the several asylums 
for the insane have won 
for these a distinction 
not less marked than 
that of the two first- 
named institutions. 

The State offices to 
be filled, by a vote of 
the people, at the elec- 
tion in August, 1891, 
and for the last time 
under the Constitution 
of 1850, were governor, 
lieutenant-governor, at' 
torney-general, auditor, 
treasurer, register of the 
land office, superinten- 
dent of public instruc- 
tion, and clerk of the Court of Appeals. For these offices were nominated 
respectively, by the Democratic party: John Young Brown, M. C. Alfoid, 
W. J. Hendrick, L. C. Norman, H. S. Hale, G. B. Swango, E. P. Thomp- 
son, and A. Addams. By the Republicars: A. T. Wood, H. E. Huston, 
T. J. Crawford, Charles Blanford, Eli Farmer, L. I. Dcdge, and Robeit 
Blain. By the Prohibitionists : Josiah Harris, H. M. Winslow, E. J. 
Polk, W. W. Goddard, J. M. Holmes, B. McGregor, A. B. Jones, and R. 
S. Friend; and by the People's Party: S. B. Erwin, S. F. Smith, B. L. D. 
Guffy, W. G. Fulkerson, I. G. Bailee, M. Herreld, J. B. Secrist, and W. B. 
Ogden. The nominees of the Democratic party were elected by popular 
majorities ranging between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand votes. 
The usual installation ceremonies were observed in September, after the 
election, at the Capitol. This administrative term will be remembered as 
one of the most important episodes of the history of the Commonwealth. 
The changes made by the new constitution imposed upon the Legislature 
the delicate and complex duties of altering and adjusting the statutory laws 
of the State to the new condition of affairs; upon the judiciary, that of 
construing the new constitution and laws, and upon the executive, the 
duties of first enforcement. The General Assembly which convened 




JOHN W. HEADLEY. 



THE STATE CENTENNIAL IN 1892. 



805 




W. J. HENDRICK. 



on the last days of December, 1891, continued in session over seven 
months. On adjournment in August, it was reconvened ten days after, 
on call of the governor, and was in session several months. 

To simplify and facilitate the work of legislation, and in accordance 
with the provisions of law, the gov- 
ernor appointed John Carroll, W. C. 
McChord, and James C. Sims, com- 
missioners to revise the statutes, and 
to prepare them in form for the action 
of the General Assembly. 

On his accession to office. Governor 
Brown appointed John W. Headley, 
secretary of state, and Ed O. Leigh, 
assistant secretary; A. J. Gross, ad- 
jutant-general ; W. H. Gardner, in- 
spector of public offices; Nicholas 
McDowell, commissioner of agricul- 
ture, and C. C. McChord, Charles B. 
Poyntz, and Urey Woodson, railroad 
commissioners. Mrs. Mary Brown 
Day was re-elected librarian. 

By a coincidence which happened 
with no other State in the Union, the centennial of the accession of Ken- 
tucky to Statehood as one of the United States, and the discovery of 
America, by Columbus, occurred in the same year, 1892. February 4, 1791, 
Congress passed the final act of admission, to have effect June i, 1792; 
and all the conditions having been complied with, Kentucky formally 
assumed her sovereignty as a member of the Federal Union on that day. 
On October 12, 1492, Columbus first sighted the land of America. Eight- 
een hundred and ninety-two is the first centennial of the birth of our 
Commonwealth, and the fourth centennial of the discovery. In commem- 
oration of the great event of discovery, the Columbian Exposition was 
projected on a scale of national magnificence and international magnitude, 
unequaled in the history of the world, and Chicago selected as the site. 
The Legislature of Kentucky appropriated one hundred thousand dollars 
from the public treasury, to have the State duly and appropriately repre- 
sented on the occasion. In accordance with a provision of the act of 
appropriation, Governor Brown appointed a commission of five citizens, 
composed of W. H. Dulaney, J. D. Clardy, John W. Yerkes, James D, 
Black, and Young E. Allison, for the disbursement of the money, and for 
the proper management of all interests and exhibits of the State during 
the season of the exposition. The body named appointed an auxiliary 
commission of three ladies, Mrs. Sue Phillips Brown and Misses Ida E. 
Symmes and Lucy Lee Hill, to have charge of such interests as more 



8o6 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 






especially applied to women. In 1891, President Harrison appointed 
James A. McKenzie, John S. Morris, Wm. Lindsay, and John Bennett, 
from Kentucky, to represent the exposition at home and abroad in foreign 
countries from a national standpoint. 

The history of this event of the Nineteenth century has entered so largely 

into the literature of the day as 
to have become familiar to 
every intelligent mind. 

On the I St day of June, 
1892, the centennial of the 
Statehood of Kentucky, an 
audience assembled at Ma- 
cauley's Theater, in Louisville, 
in commemoration of the event. 
Col. R. T. Durrett, under the 
auspices, and as the president, 
of the Filson Historic Club, 
read an interesting address, 
graphically reviewing the his- 
tory of the discovery, settle- 
ment, and political events of 
the State, making a contribu- 
tion of value both to the 
literature and history of our 
Commonwealth. Major Henry 
T. Stanton followed with a 
stirring poem appropriate to the occasion, and in flowing and rhythmical 
verse recited again the story of adventure, of romance and heroism, 
stranger and not less fascinating than fiction. A banquet at the Gait House 
followed these literary exercises, in the evening of the same day, attended 
by the members of the Filson Club and their invited guests. The toasts 
and speeches around the dining-board were commemorative of the heroic 
men and women of Kentucky, and of their heroic deeds. 

At Lexington, the first capital of the State, the ceremonies of celebra- 
tion were of wider range and more varied. The governor and staff, the 
State officials and members of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth, 
were present, by invitation, with a large attendance of visitors from far and 
near. 

The donation by the citizens of Philadelphia of a group of historical 
works of art was one of the leading and interesting incidents of the day. 
The collection included four paintings in oil ; one, of Independence Hall, 
in which the Declaration of Independence was signed ; one, of the build- 
ing in which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; 
two views of Carpenter's Hall, in which the Continental Congress first met. 




L, C. NORMAN. 



THE STATE CENTENNIAL IN i8q2. 



807 



September 5, 1774, and in which the act admitting Kentucky to the Union 
was passed. Accompanying the paintings was a portfolio elegantly bound 
in Russia leather. This contained a copy of the letter of Hon. J. E. Pey- 
ton, of Philadelphia, to Governor Brown; a copy of the presentation testi- 
monial of Carpenter's company; a copy of the presentation testimonials of 
the citizens of Philadelphia ; 
a large photographic view of 
Bunker Hill monument; a 
similar view of Carpenter's 
Hall ; a scene of the opening 
of the first Colonial Congress, 
called " Duche's Prayer;" a 
view of Independence Hall ; 
a view of Congress Hall, in 
which Kentucky was admitted 
into the Union; a view of the 
building in which Jefferson 
wrote the Declaration ; a view 
of the Moore House, on Tem- 
ple Farm, Yorktown, Virginia, 
in which the terms of surren- 
der by Cornwallis were drawn 
up ; a view of the Yorktown 
monument; and last, a fine 
expansive view of the present 
Capitol at Washington. Twenty-two of the citizens of Philadelphia formed 
the committee of presentation of these beautiful and hallowed souvenirs of 
the historic past, under the lead of Hon. Jesse E. Peyton, a Kentuckian 
by birth and raising. Other representatives of the City of Brotherly Love 
with him were Hampton L. Carson, John Lucas, Francis M. Brock, John 
W. Woodside, Edward Shippen, James L. Pennypacker, and Granville Pat- 
ton. From Carpenter's company were S, R. Mariner, Stacy Reaves, Thomas 
H. Marshall, Charles McDevitt, Oliver Brandin, and Jacob Garber. From 
the Select Council were J. M. Adams, George Myers, A. D. Wilson, John 
H. Baizley, Henry Robertson, James Franklin, Daniel Watt, and William 
C. Haddock. 

The distinguished guests were met with a generous welcome, and the 
hospitality of the State and her people extended in honor of their presence 
and mission. An address of welcome was made by J. H. Davidson, Mayor 
of Lexington, and responded to by Hons. Edward Shippen and Joseph M. 
Adams, of the committee. A brilliant oration by Hon. Hampton L. Car- 
son, of Philadelphia, was then delivered, and an original poem by John W. 
Woodside followed. The proceedings were happily closed with eloquent 
addresses by Governor Brown and Hon. W. C. P. Breckinridge, when the 




PROFESSOR W. H. BARTHOLOMEW. 



8o8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

assemblage was invited to Woodland Park, to partake of an old-fashioned 
Kentucky barbecue feast, after the custom handed down by our pioneer 
fathers. 

Thus passed into history the memorial services of Kentucky's first cen- 
tennial, and the occasions of festivity that followed; when the thousands 
present adjourned to their homes, destined to never look upon the like 
again. On the ist day of June, 1992, a few of their children, and many 
of their children's children, will assemble once more, with patriotic rever- 
ence and pride, to pay the tribute of respect to the memories of the historic 
dead, of the past and of the future, and to their great achievements, which 
shall add new luster and fame, with the old, to our Commonwealth. 



i 



EVENTS OF THE PERIOD FROM 1892 TO 1895. 



809 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

(1892-95.) 



Oeneral uurest and discontent. 

Parties and platforms, 1892. 

Collapse of the speculative mania. 

Mad folly of investing in "boom" 
properties. 

Disastrous results to many worthy 
citizens. 

The inevitable day of reckoning 
must come. 

Ominous troubles from '' strikes " 
and " riots." 

The Agriculturists and the 'Peo- 
ple's Party." 

Results of the November election, 
1892. 

The "Long Session" of the Legis- 
lature. 

State revenues and finance. 

Lottery charters revoked and forbid- 
den. 

Resolution against Pinkerton de- 
tectives. 

Resolution favoring the election of 
U. S. Senators by the people. 

The " separate coach " law. 

The Capitol to remain at Frank- 
fort. 

Foreign companies must be incor- 
porated under Kentucky laws and be- 
come residents. 

Property rights of husband and wife 
made equal. 



Classifying the cities into six grades. 

Unwise legislation causes a deficit in 
the treasury. 

Successful methods of the treasurer. 

Annual receipts and disbursements. 

Court of Appeals increased to seven 
members. 

Common school law revised. The 
good and the evil of legislation. 

Recent educational progress under 
good management. Needed reforms. 

The great panic and its disasters, 
1893. 

Causes and remedies. Better out- 
look. 

Radical changes in politics and 
parties. 

In 1892 the tidal wave carries into 
power the Democracy ; in 1894 the 
Republicans. 

The tariff in 1892 ; silver coinage in 
1894 95. 

Repeal of the Sherman law. 

A. P. A , or American Protective As- 
sociation. 

Congressional elections, 1894. 

Administration of Governor Brown. 

Kentucky under the panic. 

The city of Louisville ; its phenom- 
enal growth in the face of disasters 
and panic. Its attractions and future 
promise. 



The period beginning with the autumn of 1892 and extending to the 
close of 1895 will be ever memorable in the history of our country for the 
radical and almost revolutionary changes which occurred in its political, 
financial, and industrial affairs. The presidential campaign for 1892 was 
inaugurated in the usual manner. The Republican National Convention, 
held at Minneapolis, June 7th, nominated Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, 
for President, and Whitelaw Reid, of New York, for Vice-President of the 
United States. The platform declared the indorsement by the party of the 
policy of high protection as set forth in the recent law of Congress known 



8lO HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

as the McKinley bill ; the doctrine of reciprocity in trade with other nations ; 
and the use of both gold and silver by international agreement, or under 
such restrictions as would maintain the parity of the money coined of the 
two metals; these being the leading issues before the people. 

The Democratic National Convention followed next, at Chicago, June 
2 ist, with the nominations of Grover Cleveland, of New York, for President, 
and Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, for Vice-President. The resolutions 
adopted condemned the Federal election law enacted under Republican 
rule; the policy of extreme protection under the McKinley law, but favor- 
ing a tariff for revenue only ; the Republican policy of reciprocity ; declared 
opposition to trusts and combinations of capital as against the interests of 
the people; for the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination, 
the dollar unit to be the same value by law, or under international agree- 
ment; and for the repeal of the ten per cent, tax on State bank issues. 

The National Convention of the People's party, now a formidable 
minority factor in the politics of the country, assembled at Omaha July 2d, 
and nominated James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and James G, 
Field, of Virginia, for Vice-President, their standard bearers for the cam- 
paign. The convention declared the nation to be on the verge of ruin, 
moral, political, and material; that corruption dominated the ballot-box, 
the Legislature, the Congress, and touched the ermine ; that homes were 
covered with mortgages, and labor impoverished ; that imported pauper labor 
beat down the wages of honest workingmen; that the fruits of the toil of 
the millions are stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few ; that govern- 
mental injustice was breeding the two great classes — tramps and millionaires. 
A declaration of principles set forth the belief that the government should 
own all the railroads, and control them under civil service regulations; that a 
national currency of gold, silver, and paper, equal to fifty dollars per capita 
in volume, should be issued, and, as needed, distributed among the people 
on some equitable basis, not to exceed a tax of two per cent, per annum, 
and to be a legal tender for all debts; that a graduated income tax be im- 
posed, in order that capital be made to bear a part of the burdens of gov- 
ernment; and that postal savings banks be established for the accommoda- 
tion of the people. 

The Prohibition party, at Cincinnati June 29th, nominated for President, 
John Bidwell, of California, and for Vice-President, James B. Cranfill, of 
Texas, and proceeded to make the usual declarations of principles in regard 
to the traffic and use of alcoholic liquors. 

The auguries were inauspicious for the party long in power, and whom 
the people were inclined to hold responsible, with little questioning, for the ' 
prostration in business and the depression in values which already pervaded 
the country. They did not pause to consider the fact that the country was 
already in the trough of reaction from a period of excessive inflations of 
property values and of wild speculations, which had run its varied and 



THE "boom" in eastern KENTUCKY. 8ll 

errant courses from 1883 to 1891. This system of "booming" properties, 
urban and rural, was extended to every part of the United Stales, by pro- 
fessional experts, during these seven or eight years; and, unfortunately, 
Kentucky was enticed or dragooned into her full measure of the folly. 
Middlesborough, Pineville, Beattyville, Grand Rivers, and many other 
points were chosen and laid out as sites for future centers of mining, man- 
ufacturing, and other industries. These all had undoubtedly natural advan- 
tages of great value, and are yet destined to contribute in no small measure 
to the wealth and development of the State. But under the stimulations 
of exaggerated reports and estimates, a frenzy of speculation seized the 
public mind and led thousands and tens of thousands to invest their all in 
visionary hopes of becoming suddenly rich. At the high-tide of these excite- 
ments, lots eligibly located sold for as much per front foot as in old and estab- 
lished cities, and more in many instances than the ground cost per acre but a 
year or two before. At these fictitious values these inflated properties were 
unloaded upon the confiding and misguided people at five, ten, and twenty 
times their real value, until vast amounts of their capital, earned in years 
of saving, were absorbed into the hands of a few favored ones called Pro- 
fnotgrs, or dissipated among the crowd of adventurers. Large purchasers 
of lands for their mineral, timber, and other values shared the same fate. 

The results of such widespread inflation and speculation in properties at 
fictitious values might have been anticipated, if the people had reasoned 
with their usual intelligence and foresight. The experiences of 1838-42, 
of 1857-60, and of 1873-79, were object-lessons from the pages of history 
to warn and instruct. To the end of 1892, there appeared no unusual 
financial or commercial convulsions to seriously interrupt the currents of 
trade. On the other hand, there were reported for the year, through the 
accredited agencies, but 10,270 failures in business in the United States, 
the smallest number since 1882, except for the year 1887. The collapse in 
speculation and in the values of property had brought impoverishment to 
many and serious embarrassment to multitudes more ; but there was a dis- 
position on the part of the creditor classes to be indulgent to debtors, in 
the vain hope of an early return of enhanced values and better trade. The 
causes, unfortunately, were too deep-seated for the realization of such a 
hope. A period of severe liquidation must inexorably follow that of law- 
less and desperate speculation. Such is the logic of events, and such the 
experience of history. Well would it be if in the future people would be 
warned by the records of the past ; immeasurable sufferings and the im- 
poverishment of multitudes would be avoided throughout the country, 
while vast amounts of capital squandered would find sure and profitable 
investment in legitimate enterprises, to become a boon to the individual 
and to the Commonwealth. 

There appeared in the meantime ominous forebodings along the horizon 
of politics. The year was made a notable one for serious discontent and 



8X2 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

outbreaks among operatives in mills, factories, mines, and other labor 
departments. A formidable strike of five thousand five hundred working- 
men, at the Carnegie mills, at Homestead, Pennsylvania, brought on a 
bloody collision with three hundred armed Pinkerton detectives; the riot- 
ing was only suppressed by the governor of the State calling out the State 
troops to the number of some thousands. Other troubles of magnitude fol- 
lowed, in the near vicinity and at a distance. The next disturbance of 
magnitude was the "Switchmen's Strike" at Buffalo, New York, in which 
thousands of cars were destroyed or disabled, and hundreds of thousands of 
dollars' worth of merchandise in transit burned by the rioters. This out- 
break was quelled only after calling out eight thousand of the State Guard. 
These protests from the labor element, who were feeling the pressure of 
reduced wages, and of limited or uncertain employment, came nearer home 
in the troubles that broke out in the mining districts of Tracy City and Coal 
Creek, Tennessee, and in other disturbances which were directly or in- 
directly felt in Kentucky. 

The condition of the agricultural classes was emphasized in the body of 
resolutions put forth by the convention of the People's party, made up 
mainly from the rural districts. These resolutions declared " the two old 
parties to be struggling for power and plunder, trying to drown the out- 
cries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, 
so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, 
the demonetization of silver, and the oppressions of the usurer, may all be 
lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on 
the altar of mammon ; to destroy the multitude in order corruptly to swell 
the funds of the millionaires," 

The enormous increase of government expenditures, and the contin- 
ued aggregations of gains in the hands of capitalists; the operations of 
the laws exempting property from its share of taxation and putting the 
burdens on the people ; the growing impoverishment among the masses by 
the lowering of the prices of the products of labor, on the one hand, and 
the drastic processes of depletion by overwrought taxation and subsidiz- 
ing in the interest of favored classes, under cover of unjust laws, it was 
alleged, justified the assertion that " the nation was brought to the verge of 
moral, political, and material ruin," 

It was under the arraignment of such a public sentiment, fevered and 
distressed by combined misfortunes and wrongs, that the presidential elec- 
tion was held in November, 1892; it was not strange that the party longest 
and last in power should have suffered the sacrifice of expiation upon the 
altar of public censure. The total popular vote cast was 12,154,542, of 
which 5,556,533 were for Cleveland, 5,175,577 for Harrison, 1,122,045 ^^^ 
Weaver, 279,191 for Bidwell, and 21,196 scattering. Of the total 444 
electoral votes, 277 were cast for Cleveland, 145 for Harrison, and 22 for 
Weaver. 



H 

II 



THE LONGEST LEGISLATIVE SESSION. 813 

In this election the popular vote of Kentucky was 340,844, against 
344,800 cast for Cleveland and Harrison four years previous. Of these, 
175,461 were for Cleveland, 135,441 for Harrison, 23,500 for Weaver, and 
6,442 for Bidwell. For this, the centennial year of the birth of our Com- 
monwealth, there were elected to represent Kentucky in the Fifty-third 
Congress, beginning March 4, 1893, from the First district, Wm. J. Stone; 
Second, Wm. T. Ellis; Third, Isaac H. Goodnight; Fourth, A. B. Montgom- 
ery; Fifth, A. G. Caruth; Sixth, Albert S. Berry ; Seventh, W. C. P. Breck- 
inridge; Eighth, James B. McCreary ; Ninth, T. H. Paynter; Tenth, M. J. 
Lisle ; Eleventh, Silas Adams, all of the Democratic party, except Adams. 
J. C. S. Blackburn and Wm. Lindsay were members of the United States 
Senate at the same date ; John G. Carlisle having resigned his seat in that 
body to assume the office of secretary of the treasury in Mr. Cleveland's 
cabinet, Mr. Lindsay was elected to the vacancy. For the first time since 
the accession of President Lincoln, in 1861, a period of thirty-two years, 
the Democratic party came into control of both the executive and legisla- 
tive departments of the Federal government, and for the first time was 
responsible for the legislative and administrative policy. 

The first Legislature following the adoption of the constitution met 
December 30, 1S91, and adjourned August 16, 1892, to meet again Novem- 
ber 15th after. The governor felt it imperative, on account of serious 
doubts of the constitutionality of some of the bills passed and left for him 
to sign, that the body should at once convene again ; he called the mem- 
bers to reconvene August 25th, to revise and extend the work done. With 
the exception of an interval from December 3, 1892, to January 2, 1893, 
embracing the Christmas holidays, the session was continued until a 
sine die adjournment July 3, 1893, eighteen months and four days from the 
first assembling — the longest session in the history of the State. 

The additional reforms introduced under legislation into the system of 
State, county and district taxation have almost entirely removed the old 
abuses which had grown to enormous proportions under assumed rights of 
exemption, and under exceptional rights of limited or special taxation. In 
alignment with the letter and the spirit of the constitution, the properties 
of all banking, insurance, telegraph, and other corporations are placed on 
the same footing with the property of individuals for assessment for rev- 
enue purposes. In addition, all corporations enjoying valuable franchises 
are made subject to additional taxation on what is called their franchise, 
the rate of taxation being governed by the value of the property as shown 
by the net earnings. In this way, street railway, electric light, water, gas, 
telephone, and other companies earning profits by franchises granted by 
municipalities make some return to the public for the special favors bestowed. 

The visible effects of these revenue reforms are manifest. The board 
of equalization, commissioned to adjust the varied assessment returns from 
the counties to a uniform rate, had fixed seventy per cent, of the actual 



8l4 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

cash value as the standard for all, hitherto, but advanced the standard to 
eighty per cent, in 1893. The result was that the total assessed value of 
property in the Commonwealth, for taxation in 1892, was $552,764,538, and 
in 1893, $596,799,076, an increase in one year of $44,034,538. It is 
apparent that, but for this ten per cent, increase of rate, the total of prop- 
erty assessed for taxation in 1893 would have fallen below that of 1892. 
This is readily accounted for by the shrinkage in the values of properties 
of all kind, caused by the terrible monetary and commercial depression 
which spread disorder and ruin over the entire country. 

The constitution clearly revoked all lottery charters hitherto granted by 
statutory enactment. The previous Legislature had repealed all such acts 
of charter, and other acts granting lottery franchises ; but such acts of 
repeal were contested by the companies on the ground of vested rights. 
To more successfully enforce the laws and the provisions of the constitu- 
tion, a bill was passed, and approved January 30, 1892, directing the 
attorney-general "to institute and prosecute such legal proceedings as 
may be necessary to suppress or revoke all lotteries or lottery franchises 
operated in the Commonwealth." 

So offensive to the ideas of right and humanity had become the growing 
custom elsewhere, to hire and introduce Pinkerton or other detectives, or 
other armed forces from neighboring States, for the suppression of strikes 
and outbreaks on the part of discontented laboring men, that a law was 
enacted making it a misdemeanor, with punishment by heavy fine and 
other penalties, for any person to employ or to import such armed forces 
within the State limits. 

A resolution instructing our senators and representatives in Congress 
to favor and support a measure to secure an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, empowering the people, by popular vote in the 
several States, to elect their senators in Congress, was passed by a good 
majority ; also a resolution for a commission to assist in locating the 
position of the Kentucky troops, of both armies, at the battles of Chicka- 
mauga and Missionary Ridge. 

On May 24, 1892, an act was approved compelling all railroad com- 
panies in this State to provide separate coaches or cars for white and col- 
ored passengers ; but providing that no discrimination in quality, conven- 
ience or accommodations in the coaches or partitions set apart for white 
and colored passengers should be made. The discontinuance of the old 
custom of providing first and second class cars, with discriminating rates 
of fare, was largely responsible for this. It brought the rowdy and lawless 
element into immediate contact with the civil and orderly in the railroad 
coaches, and subjected the latter to repeated scenes of drunken and dis- 
orderly violence. 

With a view to the final settlement of the question of the permanent 
location of the Capitol of the State, the Legislature sitting in 1892 passed 



CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE STATE CLASSIFIED. 815 

a joint resolution creating a committee to solicit and receive propositions 
for the site of the Capitol, with terms and advantages offered. Louisville, 
Lexington, Danville and Bowling Green entered their respective claims as 
eligible sites, and the report was laid before the legislative body, which met 
in 1894. In the bill offered, the name of Louisville was inserted to fill 
the blank on the final vote disposing of the question. It was voted down 
by a decisive majority, and by the terms of the constitution Frankfort was 
left without a rival for the coveted prize. There is now no apology or rea- 
son for further delay on the part of the General Assembly next in session 
making provision for the completion or building of a State Capitol edifice, 
on a scale creditable to the intelligence of the people of the Commonwealth, 
and ample for its uses for centuries to come. A tax of ten cents on the 
one hundred dollars of property for two years would furnish over one 
million dollars for the purpose. The condition of our State building for a 
generation past is a standing reproach to the intelligence and taste of our 
citizens. 

On July 12, 1893, a bill was approved, and became a law, prohibiting 
foreign companies, associations, and corporations from owning or controlling 
any railway, or part of a railway, in the State of Kentucky, until they have 
become corporations, citizens, and residents of this State. 

Among the important acts passed by the long session of the Legislature 
of 1892, was one classifying the cities and towns of the State into six grades. 
Of cities of the first class there is but one, Louisville. Lexington, Coving- 
ton, and Newport make up those of the second class; Paducah, Owensboro, 
Henderson, Frankfort, and Bowling Green, those of the third class. There 
are separate chartered provisions under the general law, requirements of 
the constitution, for eich class only, while under the former regime each 
city or town had its own separate charter. This will tend to simplify and 
improve the administration of municipal government within the Common- 
Avealth for the future. 

After years of agitation the General Assembly, in 1893, enacted a just and 
liberal law defining anew the property rights of husband and wife. The 
inequalities of the old law were removed, the woman, after marriage, re- 
taining the same rights of ownership and control of the property which 
came by her that the husband does with his own, which are almost absolute. 
The same rule applies to property which may come into possession after 
and during marriage. On the death of either husband or wife, the laws of 
inheritance apply in the one case as in the other. 

As anticipated, the unwise action of the Legislature which preceded the 
Constitutional Convention in reducing the State tax rate produced its 
natural results. The unusual expenses incurred by the sittings of the con- 
vention and the long legislative session, which continued from the 30th 
day of December, 1891, to July 3, 1893, with intermissions of a few days, 
caused a depletion of the treasury. The auditor reported a deficit of 



8l6 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

$79,891.77 on May 17th, and estimated that it would reach $200,000 by 
the close of the fiscal year. The treasurer suspended payment of claims 
against the State on June 30th, that funds might accumulate sufficient to 
meet the demands of the school fund, which would be $700,000, October 
ist. Really, at this date, while there was $218,000 in the treasury to the 
credit of this fund, the general expenditure fund had overdrawn its account 
the sum of $300,000, with no resources for recuperation until the revenues 
from taxation were paid in the fall. These facts, however, do not imply- 
that the State of Kentucky is in a bad condition financially. The credit of 
no Commonwealth is better abroad. The slight embarrassments are but 
superficial and transient, and have been readily met and provided for by 
the able management of the present State treasurer. The bonded debt of 
Kentucky is little more than nominal, excepting some two millions or more 
due the school fund, on which it is desirable that the State only pay the 
interest yearly. 

In February, 1890, Henry S. Hale, a practical banker of Graves county^ 
was appointed State treasurer. Up to that period the surplus of State 
funds had been deposited in certain banks at Frankfort, and the use of the 
same permitted without any charge for interest. The sum at the time 
amounted to $400,000. Treasurer Hale's banking experience led him tc> 
believe that an appreciable saving to the State could be made from this 
source. A bill was then pending in the Legislature to constitute two of 
the banks at Frankfort the sole depositories of these funds, with the pro- 
vision that " no charge be made by said banks for the set vices thtis rendered.^'' 
The measure was arrested in its passage. Though the treasurer and his 
bondsmen were responsible for any loss of public funds, Mr. Hale effected 
arrangements with these and other banks to pay an average rate of two and 
three-quarter per cent, interest on all State funds deposited with them ; but 
agreeing for the State to pay interest on any deficit in case the treasury 
should need to borrow at anytime, such deficits recurring now yearly, from 
the action of the Legislature reducing the ad valorem taxation. From 
July I, 1890, to September 30, 1893, interest was thus paid on an average 
of $360,000 of surplus State funds, producing a gross addition to the reve- 
nue of $28,939, while but $2,047 was paid to the banks for money borrowed 
on deficits. 

The receipts and disbursements of the treasury annually amount X.O 
more than $4,000,000, about one-half of which comes from ad valorem tax- 
ation on real and personal property assessed; the remainder comes from 
banks, railroads, and other corporations, license tax, trustees of jury fund, 
and other minor sources. Over $2,000,000 of this is paid out for the pub- 
lic schools, $500,000 for the support of the asylums, charitable institutions, 
and pauper idiots, leaving less than $1,500,000 for general expenses. It 
was a cause of congratulation to the people of the Commonwealth, that the 
finances were managed with rare skill and success during the critical era 



INCREASE OF APPELLATE JUDGES. 817 

of the panic, from July i to October i, 1893. Several hundred thousands 
of dollars remained in the banks drawing interest and giving relief 10 the 
country. 

The constitution provided for an increase of the number of judges 
constituting the Court of Appeals from four to seven. In conformity with 
this, the Legislature, by enactment, divided the State into seven districts, 
from each one of which a judge should be elected by the people of the 
same, at times designated, to serve for allotted terms or for regular terms 
of eight years. A vacancy on the bench was created by the death of 
Judge Caswell Bennett, August 9, 1894, before the law became operative. 
Isaac M. Quigley, of Paducah, was appointed to this vacancy by the gov- 
ernor, to serve until a successor was elected and qualified. John R. 
Grace, of Trigg county, was elected from the First judicial district in 
November, 1894. At the same period B. L. D. Guffy, of Butler county, 
was elected from the Second district; Sterling B. Toney from ihe Fourth, 
and Thomas H. Paynter from the Sixth. Of the former members of the 
court, Judges Wm. S. Pryor, Joseph H. Lewis and James H. Hazelrigg 
hold over until the close of their terms under the old law. A contest hav- 
ing been made in the Fourth district, composed of Jefferson county, over 
the vote cast, on the part of St. John Boyle, the Republican opponent of 
Judge Toney, the latter withdrew from the contention, and the revising 
board of State officials declared a vacancy to exist. George B. Eastin, of 
Louisville, was then appointed by the governor to serve until another 
shall be duly elected. On this organization of the Appellate Court of seven 
members, the provisional Superior Court no longer exists, as the constitu- 
tional court is able to meet all demands. , 

Toward the close of the long session of the Legislature, in 1893, after 
much unnecessary contention and delay a revised and amended bill, mod- 
eling the common school system for its future operation, became a law. 
On the whole, the measure was an improvement on previous laws on the 
same subject; yet, in the chaos of amendments and discussions, some 
changes were made that it would have been well to have left out. The 
most serious defect of legislation in the interests of the common schools 
of Kentucky consists in the failure to provide, by supplementary local tax- 
ation, to extend the annual session of the school to a minimum term of not 
less than seven months. The only simple and practical method of doing 
this, under the civil divisions of the territory of our State, is to adopt the 
county as the unit of taxation for revenues to supplement the State school 
fund. We have no township divisions as in many other States ; and our 
arbitrary single school districts are often too small and weak to constitute 
an effective unit for the processes of taxation. In our more fertile counties 
a local tax of ten or fifteen cents on the one hundred dollars would give the 
revenue needed to secure seven to nine months free schools in every dis- 
trict. In the other counties, twenty to thirty cents on the one hundred 

52 



8l8 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

dollars would accomplish the desired end. Or, a poll-tax of two dollars on 
each citizen subject to the same would accomplish the result in each 
county. The plea for the latter method of taxation is, that it appeals to that 
manly sense of equity and right which every citizen should feel, that for 
every great benefit enjoyed by all each individual should assume some 
share of the cost, however little it might be. There are many who pay no 
ad valorem tax, owning no assessable property, yet who are industrious, 
virtuous and valuable citizens. Many have children to educate. Few of 
these, who would accept seven months' free schooling for one or more chil- 
dren, worth at least fourteen dollars for each child pupil, would object to 
paying a poll-tax of two dollars yearly for all. Indeed, if the opportunity 
was given by law, the good citizen's self-respect and sense of justice would 
lead him to contribute this much for the common good of all with pride 
and pleasure. But the rarest few among laboring men would deem it a 
burden to pay so small a sum, in so good a cause, in which he was so 
largely a beneficiary. There are some persons, perhaps, who would pay no 
poll-tax; there are very many now who pay no ad valoretn tax. 

Another serious omission is the refusal of our legislators to adequately 
provide for training schools of an order, and in numbers sufficient, to ele- 
vate the grade of teachers, and to qualify them for the rapidly growing 
demands of our schools. Graded schools are multiplying in our towns 
and cities, and the country schools are improving throughout the State. 
Kentucky commonly keeps pace with the progress of the age, by adopting 
the most improved methods and means of advancement known to experi- 
ence. These two reformatory features added to our system, good admin- 
istration and management will sapidly place the people of the Common- 
wealth in the front with the most favored of the country. 

It is gratifying to the friends of education to note the genuine and 
healthy improvement of our common school interests in their every detail. 
Within the last few years there has been almost a complete evolution from 
the typical old and unsightly log hut, with its poverty-stricken internal and 
external shabbiness, to the tidy, commodious, and attractive modern 
schoolhouse, with cheerful environment without and tasteful comforts 
within. The backless and bare slabs for benches and desks are supplanted 
by modern furniture of elegant style and convenience, and the walls supplied 
with choice maps and charts, with the convenient blackboard in view for 
ready use. These changes embrace entire counties in many instances, and 
extend over large portions of all others. The progress made in the train- 
ing and improvement of teachers, the superior work done by a more effi- 
cient corps of county superintendents, and the greater interest manifested 
by the trustees, are evidences that the campaign of education going on is 
far-reaching and effective. The recent system of grading the studies and 
classifying the pupils in the respective grades, introduced under the pres- 
ent State superintendent for all the country schools, is a radical reform, 



THE STATE TEACHERS' READING CIRCLES. 819 

long and imperatively needed. It should be faithfully observed by every 
teacher, who may thus make the work done in the schoolroom doubly val- 
uable to the pupils. The efforts to build up libraries for the counties, and 
sometimes for the schools, can not be too highly commended. Books are 
educators of themselves, under the pleasant companionship and tutorage of 
which the teacher, the pupil, and ofttimes the patron and neighbor are 
ever expanding the horizon of knowledge, and drinking in new inspiration 
of thought and emulous desire for that which is noblest and best in life. 
They are the joy and strength of youth and the solace of old age. 

It is related of Mahomet, that one of his disciples approached and said: 
*' Prophet, my father is dead; what can I do best to show my filial affec- 
tion, and to honor the memory of an ancestor so worthy and beloved?" 
**Go, my son," replied the Prophet, "and dig a well in the desert, and 
for all time to come the weary pilgrim, the thirsty traveler, and others who 
pass by and drink of its cool waters will bless the name of your father! " 
So of every one who builds a library of good books in a community of 
people; he digs a well in the desert, and may ever after be remembered 
and blessed. 

Auxiliary and akin to the library, the institution of the work of the read- 
ing circles among the teachers and others of the several counties must result 
in great good in the promotion of a taste for literature and study. The readi- 
ness with which the superintendents and teachers have responded to the 
call of the State superintendent and his associate examiners, the first year 
of experimental trial, is an earnest of success in this field. Indeed, when we 
recall the marvelous results of reading circle work in other States, we can 
only wonder that it was not introduced in Kentucky before. The initiative 
is but one feature of the enterprise and new life Superintendent Thompson 
is infusing into the system. In the State of Indiana, the "Teachers' Read- 
ing Circle" was organized eleven years ago. Of its work, the recent official 
circular says: "Its history has been one of continued growth. It has 
added greatly to the general culture of the teachers ; no agency has con- 
tributed in larger measure to the educational progress of the State." It 
embraces almost the entire profession of teachers. Supplementary to this, 
the "Young People's Reading Circle" was organized in 1887. The same 
ofticial circular adds: "This circle closes its sixth year with a membership 
of one hundred and fifty thousand. This phenomenal growth attests the 
loyalty of the teachers and school officers to the best interests of the 
children of the State. Hundreds of libraries have been established in the 
districts, placing within easy reach of the pupils the best thoughts of the 
best writers, fostering the habit and cultivating the taste for choice litera- 
ture. A movement so fruitful of good to the young should command our 
earnest support." 

The educational interests of the people of Kentucky have suffered im- 
measurably from ignorance, enmity and obduracy in our legislative halls. 



820 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

for the past fifty years. The best efforts of friends have often been baffled 
and beaten down for a time. The awakening comes tardily, after long 
waiting. ■ 

The year 1893 proved to be the culminating period of disaster resulting 
from years of methods crafty and factitious, rather than wise and patriotic, 
and which had brought about conditions abnormal in politics, in finance, 
and in trade. The shrinkage in values not only kept all properties and 
articles of merchandise at the lowest ebb ; but the long-continued reaction 
and stagnation in business so undermined confidence that the creditor 
classes despaired of the better period for liquidation and payment they had 
been hoping for. Matters grew from bad to worse, inevitably. The feel- 
ing of suspense and apprehension rapidly intensified into one of general 
alarm and distrust. The situation required but the sensational incidents of 
a few important failures to precipitate a general and widespread panic 
throughout the country. The incidents came and the catastrophe followed. 

The number of failures in the United States for 1893 reached the total 
of fifteen thousand five hundred and sixty, exceeding by over three thou- 
sand the number reported for any previous year, and five thousand two 
hundred and ninety more than for 1892. The total of liabilities for these 
failures in 1893 was $402,400,000, and the assets $262,400,000, about 
sixty-five per cent., figures nearly four times greater than for 1892. There 
were six hundred bank suspensions, of which three hundred and seventy 
were failures and classed with the above total. Two hundred and forty 
of these bank suspensions showed an excess of assets over liabilities by 
which they were enabled to resume again. Deposits in the national banks 
alone decreased to the amount of $300,000,000, the result of withdrawals 
from lack of confidence, and private hoardings. General distress followed 
these disorders and the currents of business and trade settled down into 
a stage almost of stagnation. The demand for currency fell off until money 
soon became a drug in the market. Idle money began to accumulate as a 
natural result in time, and by the close of 1893 there was lying in the 
associated banks of New York alone $207,000,000 unused. No speculator 
or trader desired money for a venture at such a time ; no merchant wished 
to increase his stock of wares or his liabilities in the face of danger. 

Farm products shared in the universal depression. Although the yields 
were comparatively small, prices were the lowest ever before reached. Of 
the four great staples, there was a decline of six per cent, in corn over 
1892; nine per cent, in oats, sixteen in wheat and seventeen in cotton, 
aggregating a loss of $220,000,000 on these alone. The prices of wheat 
fell below forty and fifty cents on the farms, according to distances from 
market; other grain and products shared in the decline. A great deal in 
hog products in Chicago had forced the price of pork to nineteen dollars per 
barrel, when, August ist, in the midst of the crash of toppling banks, com- 
mercial houses and other institutions, the price dropped in a single day to 



il 



THE PANIC OF 1893. 82I 

ten dollars per barrel, aggregating losses to the amount of many millions. 
Nearly or fully one-half the factories of the leading products of the country 
closed down, railroad and other corporations or companies reduced both 
the number and wages of employes, while mining and other great industries 
worked on fractional time or ceased work altogether. The numbers of 
working men and women thrown out of employment, to drone in idleness 
around desolate homes or to tramp the country in aimless discontent, reached 
into the millions, while the number of helpless dependents on them swelled 
to many millions, conditions discreditable to our civilization. 

It is not the province of State history to enter into descriptive details of 
the financial, industrial and social disorders which resulted from what will 
be known in the future as the great panic of 1893. The prostration and dis- 
order to business and finance have been, perhaps, as great on the whole as 
from the eventful panic which began in September, 1873, ^^*i ^o which we 
have referred in a previous chapter of this history. The latter spread its 
pall of ruin and wretchedness over the people of the country throughout 
a period of over five years. During these long years of distress factories 
were closed, industries were paralyzed and hundreds of thousands of idle 
but honest working people roamed the country vainly seeking for employ- 
ment and wages to drive the wolf from the door. Whether the causes of 
the present panic are as deep-seated and the remedies as ineffective to stay 
the evils or not, the future must tell. At the present date, two years after 
the panic set in, the omens for a return to a more healthy and prosperous 
era at an early day are promising. 

Radical changes in political sentiment have been manifest within the 
past three years, threatening new alignments of party organizations in the 
future. After the inauguration of Mr. Cleveland as president, in 1893, 
Congress was called together for the purpose of effecting a repeal of what 
was known as the Sherman law of 1890, providing for the monthly purchase 
by the government of not exceeding $4,500,000 of silver, and the issue of 
treasury notes therefor. The views of the president in favor of a single 
gold standard for the currency of the country were openly pronounced 
before his inauguration in 1885, in opposition to the traditional doctrine of 
the Democratic party, as set forth in the declarations of its platforms, and 
the utterances of its leaders. The Democratic congressmen, led by Beck, 
Blackburn, Carlisle, and others, were understood to favor a bi-metallic 
policy of both gold and silver coinage ; the Democratic State Convention 
in 1891 so declared itself. The Democratic National Convention, 
declared, in 1880, for "Honest money, consisting of gold and silver, and 
paper convertible into coin," 

In 1884, that "We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage 
of the constitution, and a circulating medium (paper) convertible into such 
money without loss." 



822 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In 1888, "it renewed the pledge of fidelity to Democratic faith, and 
re-affirms the platform adopted in 1884." 

In 1892 the platform said: "We hold to the use of both gold and silver 
as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both without 
discrimination against either metal ; but the dollar unit of coinage of both 
metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, and that all paper 
money be kept at par with coin." 

The Republican national platform of 1888 declared that "The Repub- 
lican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver money, and 
condemns the policy of the Democratic administration in its efforts to 
demonetize silver." In 1892 it again said: "The Republican party 
demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with restric- 
tions to be determined by contemplation of values of the two metals, so 
that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar be equal at all 
times." 

It was agreed by all parties that the Sherman law was a vicious measure, 
the result of a compromise between the Eastern monometallists and the dele- 
gates in Congress from the silver-producing States to prevent the passage 
of a bill pending for the free coinage of silver in 1890. The issue now 
made was to repeal only, or to repeal with a provision added for the resto- 
ration of the coinage of silver on the same terms with gold. It Avas soon 
obvious that the whole power of the Democratic administration was to be 
wielded in favor of establishing a gold basis for the currency of the future. 
It was just as obvious that a powerful opposition to the administration, 
within the party, was arrayed in Congress. The administration measure 
for simple repeal finally passed, but it was by the anomalous conditions of 
the support of the Republican senators, who voted a majority for repeal. 
The Democratic senators voted by over two-thirds against the measure. 

The bold and determined stand of the president and his political house- 
hold against the policy of bimetallic coinage caused a formidable breach in 
the national Democratic party, and crystallized an issue that will doubtless 
breed contention until the coinage policy is settled one way or the other. 
The Republican party is likewise almost as much divided in sentiment on 
this question. It dominates the politics of Kentucky to-day, and the 
ground here is being fought over with the same earnestness and intensity 
of feeling as in other States. 

In the presidential contest of 1892 the living and paramount issue was 
that of tariff reform. It is but due to say that the administration and the 
Democratic Congress in 1S93 redeemed the pledges of the party platform 
fairly well, in an elaborate measure reducing and adjusting the tariff laws 
more nearly to a revenue basis ; although powerful opposition on the part 
of Eastern members of the party, supported by Republican sympathy and 
aid, forced many modifications of the bill favored by the administration. 
The law as revised is now operative and on trial before the people. 



THE AMERICAN PKOIECTIVE ASSOCIATION. 823 

There appeared on the pohtical horizon, some three years since, what 
seemed "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand." It was soon manifest 
that the ' ' ghost " of the old Know Nothing party of forty years ago had 
reappeared and had actually taken the form and attributes of a political 
personality. With ils secret lodge colonies, its rituals and pledges, and 
signs and pass-words, it is modeled much on the same order, while the 
spirit of hostility to the Catholic Church and to foreign emigration and 
foreign influence in our politics betrays much of the characteristics of the 
sensational party that came and passed away so strangely in 1854-55. It 
reappears under the name of the American Protective Association. Under 
an active propagandism it has spread with marvelous rapidity throughout 
the country, and is already domiciled in every State and in almost every 
city and leading center. In many of these headquarters, and in a number 
of State elections, it has shown itself to have become a formidable balance 
of power, if not in control of a majority of the votes. Its potent influence 
has been felt in recent elections in Louisville and at other points in Ken- 
tucky. What the future bearings of this phenomenal movement may be 
upon the politics and parties of the day time only can determine. Its 
promotors and its membership are intensely zealous and aggressive, and 
with close and compact organization are likely to wield an influence to 
be felt. 

In the Federal elections for representatives in Congress in November, 
1894, a significant expression of the general and restive discontent of the 
people over the unsatisfactory methods of government in past years was 
given. Just two years before, the popular vote in the presidential election 
indicated a want of confidence in Republican rule under the administra- 
tion of President Harrison. The transitional changes under the Demo- 
cratic rule which succeeded were attended with much irritating contention 
and friction in the proceedings of Congress, and acrimonious criticism 
outside. The distress and disorders attending the great monetary panic, 
which was unfortunately coincident in time with the Democratic attempt 
at reform and readjustment, gave new cause of discontent for the supposed 
wrongs of government, whether real or imaginary. In the elections of 
November, 1894, the people were as ready to reverse their judgment and 
disapprove and to rebuke the Democratic administration as they were that 
of the Republican in 1892. The majority of the members of the latter 
elected to the present lower house of Congress was about as great as the 
majority of the Democratic members in the preceding body. 

The defection extended to Kentucky, and in the aggregate vote of the 
State the regular Democratic majorities of 30,000 to 50,000 in past years 
were overcome almost totally. From the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, 
Eighth and Tenth Congressional districts there were respectively elected 
John K. Hendricks, John D. Clardy, Albert S. Berry, W. C. Owen, James 
B. McCreary, and W. M. Kendall, Democrats; and from the Third, 



824 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh districts, W. Godfrey Hunter, John 
W. Lewis, Waher S. Evans, S. J. Pugh, and D. G. Colson, Republicans, 
standing five to six. It remains to be seen by what finesse of tactics and 
arts of pleasing the Republicans, whom fortune so favors at present, will be 
able to meet the fickle humors of the multitudes in their restless discon- 
tents, and long retain the powers intrusted. 

The year 1895 closes the administrative term of John Young Brown, 
governor of Kentucky. It is but a just tribute to say of this distinguished 
gentleman that he has served the people of the Commonwealth with con- 
summate ability and with a fidelity which commands the highest admiration 
and praise. The ordeal has been a trying one. The transitional change 
from the old constitution to the new, and the adjustment of our code of laws 
and our institutions to the changed conditions required the discretion and 
acumen of a judicial mind, and a ready tact of statesmanship of the high- 
est order. Governor Brown has shown himself to be equal to every emer- 
gency that has arisen within the jurisdiction of his realm of official duty. 
It is not invidious to say that Kentucky, perhaps, never had a chief magis- 
trate of superior judicial and administrative abilities, nor one more impe- 
riously true to his convictions of right and to the interests of the people 
whom he served. 

The episode of panic and financial troubles came in the midst of the 
service of the present governor. From these troubles Kentucky has suffered, 
but not as many other States. Her people were not unusually burdened 
with debts, excepting in some speculative circles before alluded to. With 
fair crop productions, safely limited trade, and cautionary economy, the 
masses of the population have tided over the perilous event with compara- 
tively little real suffering. The future seems cheering and hopeful for an 
era of years of steady prosperity and improvement of all material interests. 
While the people of the rural districts have dwelt in the midst of compara- 
tive repose and competence, the dwellers in the towns and cities have 
reasonably prospered in the lines of legitimate business. These municipal- 
ities themselves have almost, without exception, had a healthy growth in 
material improvements, which the vicissitudes of financial changes can not 
take from them. Especially has the improvement in our cities of the first, 
second, and third classes been gratifying. The increase in populations, in 
manufacturing industries, and in all modern institutions for the comfort and 
convenience of the people, is evidence of progress and enterprise. 

Few cities of its class in the United States compare with Louisville, the 
metropolitan mart of Kentucky, in the attractions offered as a site for pur- 
poses of residence or business. The railroad facilities of the city have 
been quadrupled within ten years past. Five distinct trunk lines enter this 
great gateway between the North, the South, the East, and the West over 
three magnificent bridgeways, which span the Ohio river at the Falls, and 
make connections with the centers of trade and commerce on the Atlantic 



THE POPULATION OF LOUISVILLE IN 1890. 825 

seaboard, on the Lake shores, and on the upper Mississippi waters. Six 
lines of railways on the south side give ingress and egress to trains connect- 
ing with the marts of the lower Mississippi, the Southwest, the Gulf shore, 
and the South Atlantic waters. The Ohio river bears upon its broad bosom 
fleets of competing boats and barges carrying the products of the country, 
the mines, and the factories, from the foot-hills of the AUeghanies to the 
base of the Rocky Mountains, and from the watersheds of Minnesota to the 
Gulf of Mexico, over the entire valley of the Mississippi. Coal fields, iron 
ores, timber forests, natural gas wells, cotton and grain, and fertile lands 
are in easy vicinity. Few cities on the continent possess the elements of 
successful manufacture and commerce in greater abundance and more eco- 
nomic form. 

The population of Louisville by the census of 1890, very imperfectly 
taken, was approximately 162,000. Since that time the city limits have 
been extended, taking in several suburban towns. If the ratio of increase 
continues as heretofore, it may reasonably be expected that the census of 
the next decade will make a return of over 200,000 population. One phe- 
nomenal feature of growth is worthy of note : Since the subsidence of the 
speculative mania four or five years ago, the increase of population, of 
buildings, and of business, has been the greatest of her history. While 
other notable centers of population have lost ground or fallen into stagna- 
tion, Louisville has forged ahead with greater rapidity than ever before. 
This may bs attributed to several incidental causes, which have had a favor- 
able bearing. 

Within four years Louisville virtually acquired her magnificent park 
system. To this date $1,600,000 has been voted by the citizens for parks. 
Some three hundred acres of beautiful, undulating woodlands on the east, 
adjoining Cave Hill Cemetery, were purchased, laid out, and converted into 
Cherokee Park ; five hundred acres south constitute Iroquois Park, and 
two hundred and seventy-five acres at the west end, fronting the Ohio river, 
Shawnee Park. These are connected, or to be connected, by broad boule- 
vards paved with asphalt, affording beautiful drives and promenades of ten 
or twelve miles extent. A number of interior small parks, neatly embel- 
lished, have also been purchased at convenient points throughout the city. 
Adjacent to the eastern park lies Cave Hill Cemetery, with its natural and 
acquired scenic beauty, unsurpassed by any other burial site in America, 
embracing four hundred acres. 

Louisville lies in an elevated valley, above the highest known overflow, 
bordered on the north and west by the Ohio river, which here flows west 
and deflects to the south, making an elbow, and giving a frontage and 
natural drainage to the city of over twelve miles. The falls, while offer- 
ing an obstruction to navigation formerly, make a unique feature in the 
view of the picturesque and beautiful Ohio. The obstruction is now over- 
come by the enlargement and improvement of the canal at the expense of 



826 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

the general government. The city is notable for its broad avenues lined 
with shade trees, its spacious and verdant yards, and its handsome and 
commodious dwellings, which s. retch for miles on either side of many of 
the streets. About one hundred and forty miles of local railways traverse 
its thoroughfares, not only connecting with every part of the city but with 
every interesting suburban point. 

The hygienic conditions of Louisville are moderately good, and capable 
of being made of the best. The mortuary records show a death-rate slightly 
below the average of that of the cities of the United States having over one 
hundred thousand population. There are but two elements needed to lower 
this death-rate to a minimum, in comparison with other cities, and to constitute 
this one of the healthiest metropolitan sites in the world ; tliese essentials are 
purified water and purified air. The Ohio river is but a sewerage channel for 
the waste of the cities, towns, and country, from Pittsburg to its mouth. 
Its foully impregnated and impure waters are unfit for drinking or culinary 
uses. It is a cause of congratulation that the managers of the Water Works 
Company have recently contracted for a thorough filtering system soon to 
be erected. Pure air can only be assured by thorough drainage and cleanly 
environment. The site of the Falls City was originally interspersed with 
areas of swamp lands and pools of stagnant water, which so poisoned the 
atmosphere with malarial exhalations that chills and fevers and bilious dis- 
orders were the rule, rather than the exception. These causes of disease, 
however, have been effectively removed within the limits of the city by an 
elaborate system of sewerage and surface draining. 

It is needed now to carry this system of drainage to the level country 
south and west of Louisville, some miles out to Salt river, to remove all 
malarial causes and to make the south-west winds of summer and autumn, 
borne over the city, as pure and innoxious as mountain breezes. This will 
give to the residents the purified air needed. We learn from the city engineer 
that a great main sewer is already in contemplation — leading from a con- 
nection in South Louisville, south-west through the flat lands, to Salt river, 
sufficient in capacity for the waste of that part of the city and the surplus 
water of the country to be carried off. With little additional expense, this 
may be made the means of a thorough reclamation of the low and swampy 
lands of this part of Jefferson county. Besides greatly improving the 
hygienic conditions of both the city and country, these lands reclaimed by 
such drainage may be made twice or three-fold as valuable for agricultural 
and gardening purposes as they have been heretofore. The people of no 
city in this civilized age should be long permitted to live without pure air 
and pure water. They are not only among the chief essentials to comfortand 
health ; they are the conditions, invariably, of health, and even of life itself. 

The public school system of Louisville has reached a standard of ex- 
cellence which ranks it with the best city systems known. Besides the 
graded schools, are the Male High School, the Female High School, and 



I 



STATE NOMINATIONS IN 1 895. 827 

the Manual Training High School. Primary, parochial, and kindergarten 
schools supplement the public needs. The fiscal school year begins with 
the first, and ends with the last, day of the year, thus altering slightly the 
pro rata from the State school fund. The total of the latter paid to the 
city last year was $215,574.33, on a census of 78,216 children. Besides 
this sum, $277,444.59 is raised by local taxation, giving the city a grand 
total of $493,018.92, for the schools. There were 24,383 pupils in attend- 
ance, making a tuition per capita of over $20. 

The Republican State Convention met in the city of Louisville, June 5, 
1895, and proceeded to nominate candidates for the several State offices, to 
be voted for at the election in November next. The following was the 
result of the action of the delegates assembled : 

For governor, Wm. O. Bradley, of Garrard county ; lieutenant-governor, 
W. J. Worthington, of Greenup county ; auditor, Sam H. Stone, of Madi- 
son county ; secretary of state, Chas. Finley, of Whitley county ; treasurer, 
George W. Long, of Grayson county; attorney-general, W. S. Taylor, of 
Butler county; superintendent of public instruction, W. J. Davidson, of 
Pulaski county; register of land office, C. O. Reynolds, of Fayette county; 
commissioner of agriculture, Lucas Moore, of Marion county. 

For the same offices the Kentucky Democratic Convention, held also at 
Louisville, on the 25th of June, selected and set forth the following names 
of leading members for its standard-bearers in the coming campaign : 

For governor, P. Wat Hardin, of Mercer county ; lieutenant-governor, 
R. L. Tyler, of Fulton county; treasurer, R. C. Ford, of Clay county; 
auditor, L. C. Norman, of Boone county; register of land office, G. B. 
Swango, of Wolfe county ; attorney-general, W. J. Hendrick, of Fleming 
county ; secretary of state, Henry S. Hale, of Graves ; superintendent of 
public instruction, Ed Porter Thompson, of Owen county; commissioner 
of agriculture, Ion B. Nail, of Louisville. 

On the 4th day of July, succeeded the convention of the People's party, 
the delegates being called to meet on this day at the city of Louisville. 
The result of the action of this convention was the presentation of a ticket 
composed of the names of the following leaders, for the offices of state : 

For governor, Thos. S. Pettit, of Daviess county; lieutenant-governor, 
J. G. Blair, of Nicholas county; treasurer, M. R. Gardner, of Hardin 
county; auditor, C. H. Dean, of Woodford county; register of land office, 
J. E. Quicksall, of Wolfe county; attorney general, Silas M. Peyton, of 
Hart county; secretary of state, Dr. Don Singletary, of Hickman county; 
superintendent of public instruction, H. H. Farmer, of Henderson; com- 
missioner of agriculture, W. L. Scott, of Shelby county ; for United States 
Senator, Clarence S. Bate, of Jefferson county. The contest promises to 
be one of unusual interest, from the prominence of the issues involved, and 
of new factors of influence which appear to play a more or less important 
part in controlling the results. 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



APPENDIX. 



Kentucky before Statehood. 

Governors, lieutenant governors and 
secretaries of state. 

Parent settlements in Virginia and 
North Carolina. 

Counties of Kentucky. 

Census statistics of Kentucky, 1890. 

United States senators, 1792-1896. 

Representatives in Congress, 1792- 
1896. 

Chief-justices of Kentucky, 1792- 

1895- 

Attorney-generals of Kentucky ap- 
pointed ; same elected, 1792-1892. 

Speakers of the house, 1792-1894. 

Ambassadors, foreign ministers, 
consuls, etc., who were Kentuckians. 



Federal generals. 

Confederate generals. 

Members of the Provisional govern- 
ment and Congressmen of Kentucky 
under the Confederacy, 1861-65. 

Prominent Kentuckians. 

Heads of departments and officers of 
the United States government who 
were Kentuckians, 1792-1892. 

Judges of the United States Supreme 
Court. 

Kentuckians, governors of other 
States. 

Kentuckians, United States senators 
from other States. 

Members of Constitutional Conven- 
tion, 1890-91. 



GOVERNMENT OF KENTUCKY BEFORE IT BECAME A STATE. 

Robert Dinwiddle— called '' lieutenant-governor " — arrived in Virginia 
from England early in 1752, and departed in January, 1758. His vacancy 
was filled for a short time by John Blair, president of the council. 

The Earl of Loudoun was appointed by the King the successor of Din- 
widdie, and came to Philadelphia, but never to Virginia. 

Francis Fauquier was appointed lieutenant-governor, and reached Vir- 
ginia in 1758. He continued governor until his death, early in 1768, when 
John Blair, who was still president of the council, again acted as governor. 

In November, 1768, Norborne Berkley, Baron de Botetourt, arrived in 
Virginia as governor-in-chief. "Solicitous to gratify the Virginians, Bote- 
tourt pledged his life and fortune to extend the boundary of Virginia on the 
west to the Tennessee river, on the parallel of 36° 30'. This boundary, 
Andrew Lewis and Dr. Thomas Walker wrote, would give some room to 
extend the settlements for ten or twelve years." Botetourt died October, 
1770, after two years' service, in which he proved himself a friend of 
Virginia. The Colonial Assembly erected a statue in honor of him, in 
front of William and Mary College, at Williamsburg, which was destroyed 
by some vandalism in the Federal army, about 1864. 

In 1772, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore (generally called Governor 
Dunmore), was transferred from the governorship of New York to that of 



GOVERNORS, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS, AND SECRETARIES. 829 

Virginia. He was the last colonial governor. He sent out surveying 
parties in 1773 and 1774 to survey, for himself, lands along and near the 
Ohio river. 

June 29, 1776, Patrick Henry, Jr., the great orator of the Revolution, 
was elected the first republican governor of Virginia — receiving 60 votes, 
to 45 cast for Thomas Nelson, Sr., in the convention. The governors of 
the State of Virginia, up to the time of the separation of Kentucky and its 
admission into the Union as a State, were : 

June 29, 1776 . . . Patrick Henry. December, 1784 . Patrick Henry. 

June I, 1779 . . . Thomas Jefferson. December, 1786 • Edmund Randolph. 

June 12, 1781 . . . Thomas Nelson. December, 1788 . Beverly Randolph. 

November, 1781 . Benj. Harrison. December, 1791 . Henry Lee, 



GOVERNORS, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS, AND SECRETARIES OF 
THE COMMONWEALTH. 

I. Isaac Shelby, the first Governor, took the oath of office on the 4th 
of June, 1792, under the first Constitution; James Brown, Secretary of 
State. 

n. James Garrard took the oath of office June i, 1796. Harry Toulmin, 
Secretary. The second Constitution was formed 1799. 

HI. James Garrard, being eligible, was again elected Governor ; Alex- 
ander S. Bullitt was made the first Lieutenant-Governor; Harry Toulmin, 
Secretary. 1800. 

IV. Christopher Greenup, Governor ; John Caldwell, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor ; John Rowan, Secretary. 1804. 

V. Charles Scott, Governor; Gabriel Slaughter, Lieutenant-Governor; 
Jesse Bledsoe, Secretary. 1808. 

VI. Isaac Shelby, Governor ; Richard Hickman, Lieutenant-Governor ; 
Martin D. Hardin, Secretary. 181 2. 

VII. George Madison, Governor ; Gabriel Slaughter, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; Charles S. Todd, Secretary. 1816. Governor Madison died at 
Paris, Kentucky, on the 14th of October, 1816, and on the 21st of the same 
month Gabriel Slaughter, Lieutenant-Governor, assumed the duties of 
Executive. John Pope, and after him, Oliver G. Waggoner, Secretary. 

VIII. John Adair, Governor ; William T. Barry, Lieutenant-Governor ; 
Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, and after him, Thomas B. Monroe, Secretary, 
1820. 

IX. Joseph Desha, Governor; Robert B. McAfee, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; William T. Barry, succeeded by James C. Pickett, Secretary. 1824. 

X. Thomas Metcalfe, Governor; John Breathitt, Lieutenant-Governor; 
George Robertson, succeeded by Thomas T. Crittenden, Secretary. 1828. 

XL John Breathitt, Governor ; James T. Morehead, Lieutenant-Gov- 



830 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

ernor; Lewis Sanders, Jr., Secretary. Governor Breathitt died on the 21st 
of February, 1834, and on the 2 2d of the same month, James T. Morehead, 
the Lieutenant-Governor, took the oath of office as Governor of the State. 
John J. Critienden, William Owsley and Austin P. Cox were, successively. 
Secretary. 1832. 

Xn. James Clark, Governor ; Charles A. Wickliffe, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor ; James M. Bullock, Secretary. Governor Clark departed this life 
on the 27th of September, 1839, and on the 5th of October, Charles A. 
Wickliffe, Lieutenant-Governor, assumed the duties of Governor. 1836. 

Xin. Robert P. Letcher, Governor ; Manlius V. Thompson, Lieuten- 
ant-Governor ; James Harlan, Secretary. 1840. 

XIV. William Owsley, Governor; Archibald Dixon, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; Benjamin Hardin, George B. Kinkead and William D. Reed, suc- 
cessively, Secretary. 1844. 

XV. John J. Crittenden, Governor ; John L. Helm, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; John W. Finnell, Secretary. Governor Crittenden resigned July 
31, 1850, and John L. Helm became Governor, until the first Tuesday of 
September, 1851. 1848-51. 

XVI. Lazarus W. Powell, Governor ; John B. Thompson, Lieutenant- 
Governor; James P. Metcalfe, Secretary. 1851-55. 

XVII. Charles S. Morehead, Governor; James G. Hardy, Lieutenant- 
Governor; Mason Brown, Secretary. 1855-59. 

XVIII. Beriah Magoffin, Governor ; Linn Boyd, Lieutenant-Governor 
(died December 17, 1859) ; Thomas B. Monroe, Jr., Secretary. Governor 
Magoffin resigned August 18, 1862, and James F. Robinson, Speaker of 
the Senate, became Governor. 1859-63. 

XIX. Thomas E. Bramlette, Governor ; Richard T. Jacob, Lieutenant- 
Governor ; E. L. Van Winkle, died May 23, 1866, succeeded by John S. 
Van Winkle, Secretary. 1863-67. 

XX. John L. Helm, Governor ; John W. Stevenson, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor ; Samuel B. Churchill, Secretary. Governor Helm died September, 
8, 1867, and John W. Stevenson took the oath as Governor. In August, 
1868, he was elected Governor, serving until February 13, 187 1, when he 
resigned to take his seat in the United States Senate, and the Speaker of 
the State Senate, Preston H. Leslie, became Governor. 1867-71. 

XXI. Preston H. Leslie, Governor; John G, Carlisle, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; Andrew J. James, succeeded by George W. Craddock, Secretary of 
State. 1871-1875. 

XXII. James B. McCreary, Governor; John C. Underwood, Lieuten- 
ant-Governor; J. Stoddard Johnston, Secretary of State. 1875-79. 

XXIII. Luke P. Blackburn, Governor; James E. Cantrell, Lieutenant- 
Governor; S. B. Churchill and J. S. Blackburn, Secretaries. 1879-83. 

XXIV. J. Proctor Knott, Governor; James R. Hindman, Lieutenant- 
Governor ; James A. McKenzie, Secretary of State. 1883-87. 






Kentucky's first colonists. 831 

XXV. Simon B. Buckner, Governor ; James W. Bryan, Lieutenant- 
Oovernor; George M. Adams, Secretary of State. 1887-91. 

XXVI. John Young Brown, Governor ; M. C. Alford, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; John W. Headley, Secretary of State. 1891-1895. 



PARENT SETTLEMENTS IN VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, FROM 
WHICH KENTUCKY MAINLY RECEIVED ITS FIRST COLONISTS. 

In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh was authorized, by royal patent from Queen 
Elizabeth, to "discover and occupy such remote and heathen lands as 
might not be possessed by Christian people, as to him should seem good." 
Raleigh equipped and sent out upon this mission two commanders, Ama- 
dus and Barlow, who landed, in July, upon Roanoke Island, on the shore 
of North Carolina. Here the "Meteor Flag" of England, as an emblem 
of authority, was first raised upon the present territory of the United 
States. After taking formal possession, in the name of his Queen, Amadus 
returned to England bearing the welcome news of success. In the fullness 
of her heart. Queen Elizabeth, the virgin queen, gave to the country the 
name of Virginia. 

Popular credulity was easily moved by the glowing description of the 
loveliness of the scenery, the mildness of the climate, and the gentle hospi- 
tality of the natives of the new country; and in the following April, 1585, 
a colony of over one hundred persons embarked in seven vessels, to plant 
their homes and fortunes there. They landed on Roanoke Island in July. 
After the trials of a single year, the adventure proved too discouraging, 
and the colonists returned to England. 

In 1587, Raleigh dispatched John White, commissioned as governor of 
the colony, with over one hundred others, who landed on the northern 
end of Roanoke Island, and began the foundations of "the city of 
Raleigh." White returned to England and left the colonists in other care. 
Among these was Eleanor Dare, his married daughter, who gave birth to a 
female infant, the first white child born of English parents in America. It 
was called, from the place of its birth, Virginia Dare. 

The liberal provisions of Raleigh for this last colony could not avert 
for it a fate less fortunate than that which befell the first. It was not until 
1590, three years after he set sail, that White was able to return to its 
relief. On landing and searching Roanoke Island and vicinity, not a trace 
of the colonists could be found. Either they perished in some way, or 
else, [in despair, they amalgamated with the Indians, as conjectured by Law- 
son, the first historian of Carolina. Raleigh now assigned to Thomas 
Smith and others the privileges of the trade of the Virginia coast, reserv- 
ing for himself one-fifth of the gold and silver that might be discovered. 



832 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

In 1607, a fleet of three ships, with one hundred emigrants, under Cap- 
tain Newport, sailed from England for the coast of new Virginia; but dis- 
tress of weather forced them to put in at Chesapeake Bay. The settle- 
ment of Jamestown was established there, and fostered under the wise and 
energetic administration of Captain John Smith. It is believed that his 
genius and courage alone saved this settlement from the fate of the colo- 
nies of Roanoke. The settlement on the James flourished, and expanded 
its frontier to the Potomac river in the interior, and southward along the 
coast toward Albemarle Sound, for over half a century, before it again 
could awaken and arouse an interest strong enough to revive and plan the 
third and final experiment to establish an English colony on the Carolina 
coast. A nucleus of attraction had been formed. From time to time some 
Quakers, and other refugees from religious or political intolerance, settled 
about the Albemarle coasts, and cultivated friendly relations with the 
Indian tribes adjacent. In July, 1653, a colony from Virginia, led by 
Roger Green, settled on the banks of the Roanoke, south of Chowan river. 

On the 24th of March, 1663, Charles II. granted to Edward, Earl of 
Clarendon, Sir John Colleton, Sir William Berkeley, Sir George Carteret, 
and others, all the country between latitudes 31° and 36°, from the Atlan- 
tic to the Pacific ocean, called Carolina, in honor of the royal donor. The 
same year, Sir William Berkeley, governor of the Colony of Virginia, 
visited the province, and appointed William Drummond its governor. 
Extensive as was the munificent grant made, it was enlarged in the pro- 
prietary interests of the same parties, in 1665, to include all the country 
between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, from latitude 29° to 36° 30'. 
Two colonies, Albemarle and Carteret, were established. The first Assem- 
bly that made laws for Carolina met in the autumn of 1669 ; though the 
"General Assembly of the County of Albemarle" had met two years 
before. 

The proceedings of the colonists of Virginia and North Carolina were 
of the maternal plants, from which sprang the imperishable germ of liberty, 
which, after the turbulent agitations of a century, accomplished destiny in 
the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, and gave to the oppressed of 
all nations an asylum for the free in the Republic of the United States. 
Among the powers conceded to the lord proprietors were those of enacting 
laws and constitutions for the people, with their advice and consent, or 
that of their delegates assembled from time to time. No freer country was 
ever organized by man. Freedom of conscience and taxation only with 
their own consent were first objects. Exemption from taxation for a year, 
non-recovery of debts, the cause of action of which arose out of the colony, 
within five years, a bounty of land to each settler, were provisions which 
suited the primitive people, who were as free as the air of the mountains, 
and as rough as the billowy ocean when oppressed. Their sense of manly 
independence could not brook the restraints of a government imposed from 



THE COUNTIES OF KENTUCKY. 



833 



abroad ; yet the administration was firm, humane, and tranquil when left 
to govern themselves — a marked instance of the capacity of man for self- 
government. 

In 167 1, Virginia numbered forty thousand souls; Albemarle, as North 
Carolina was then called, over fourteen hundred. Settlements gradually 
extended down the coasts, around Capes Fear and Carteret, Clarendon and 
Port Royal. 

The early colonists of Virginia and Carolina gave repeated evidences 
of their jealous love of liberty, and of their readiness to resist all forms of 
tyranny, for nearly one hundred years before the war of the Revolution. 
Not only were these sentiments expressed in frequent protests on occasions 
of abuse of power by those in authority, but in acts of resistance and 
rebellion when the impositions became oppressive and flagrant. 

From such an ancestral origin remotely came, in the main, the daring and 
adventurous pioneers of Kentucky, of whose deeds of heroism and adven- 
ture their children of to-day love to read, and to hold in proud remembrance. 



119 COUNTIES IN KENTUCKY, 1895. 



FOR WHOM NAMED. 



Adair General John 

Allen Colonel John 

Anderson .... Richard C 

Ballard .... Captain Bland 

Barren Treeless prairie . . . , 

Bath Bath Springs 

Bell Joshua F 

Boone Dauiel 

Bourbon Bourbons of France . . 

Boyd Hon. Linn 

Boyle Judge John 

Bracken William, pioneer . . . 

Breathitt .... Governor John . . . . 

Breckinridge . . . John 

Bullitt Alexander Scott . . . . 

Butler General of Revolution . 

Caldwell General John 

Calloway .... Colonel Richard . . . . 
Campbell .... Colonel John . . . . 

Carlisle John G 

Carroll Charles 

Carter Colonel William G. . . 

Casey Colonel William . . . . 

Christian .... Colonel William . . . . 

Clark General George Rogers . 

Clay General Green . . . . . 

Clinton Governor of New York, 

53 



COUNTY TOWN, 

Columbia . 
Scottsville . 
Lawrenceburg 
Wickliffe . 
Glasgow . . 
Owingsville 
rineville . . 
Burlington . 
Paris . . . 
Catlettsburg 
Danville . . 
Brookville . 
Jackson . . . 
Hardinsburg 
Shepherdsville 
INIorgantowu . 
Princeton 
Murray . 
Newport . 
Bardwell . 
Carrollton 
Grayson . 
Liberty . 
Hopkinsville 
Winchester 
Manchester 
Albany . . 



ESTAB- 
LISHED. 

I80I 

1815 

1827 

1842 

1798 

I8II 

1867 

1798 

1785. 
i860 
1842 
1796 

1839 
1799 
1796 
181O 
1809 
1822 

1794 
1886 
1838 
1838 
1806 
1796 
1792 
1806 
1835 



POPULATION, 

1890. 

13-721 
13-692 
10,610 
8,390 
21,490 
12,813 
10,312 
12,246 
16,976 

14-033 
12,948 
12,369 

8,705 
18,976 

8,291 
13-956 
13,186 

14.675 

44,208 

7,612 

9,266 

17,204 

11,848 

34,118 

15,434 

12,447 

7,047 



834 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



NAME. FOR WHOM NAMED. 

Crittenden .... John Jay . . - 
Cumberland . . . River of same . 

Daviess Colonel Joseph H. 

Edmonson .... Colonel John . . 

Elliott Judge John M. . 

Estill Captain James . . 

Fayette General LaFa^ette 

Fleming Colonel John . . 

Floyd Colonel John . . 

Franklin .... Benjamin .... 

Fulton Robert 

Gallatin Albert 

Garrard Governor James . 

Grant Samuel 

Graves Captain Benjamin 

Grayson Colonel William . 

Green General Nathaniel 

Greenup Governor Christopher 

Hancock John Hancock . . 

Hardin Colonel John . . 

Harlan Major Silas . . . 

Harrison .... Colonel Benjamin 

Hart Captain Nathaniel 

Henderson. . . . Colonel Richard . 

Henry Patrick Henry . . 

Hickman .... Captain Paschal . 

Hopkins General Samuel . 

Jackson General Andrew . 

Jefferson Thomas 

Jessamine . . . . MissDouglass,mas'cred, 

Johnson Colonel Richard M. 

Kenton Captain Simon . . . 

Knott Governor J. Proctor 

Knox General Henry . 

Larue John, pioneer . . 

Laurel Laurel river . . . 

Lawrence .... Captain James . . 

Lee General Robert E. 

Leslie Governor Preston H. 

Letcher Governor Robert P. 

Lewis Captain Merriwether 

Lincoln General Benjamin 

Livingston .... Robert R 

Logan General Benjamin 

Lyon Chittenden . . . 

Madison President James . 

Magoffin Governor Beriah . 

Marion General Francis . 

Marshall Chief Justice John 

Martin Colonel John P. . 



COUNTY TOW 


"N 




ESTAB- 


POPULATION 






1890. 


Marion . . 


. . 1842 


I3.II9 


Burksville . 






1798 


8,452 


Owensboro 






I815 


33.120 


Brownsville 






• 1825 


8,005 


Martinsburg 






. 1869 


9>2i4 


Irvine . . . 






. 1808 


10,836 


Lexington . 






. 1780 


35.698 • 


Flemingsburg 




• 1798 


16,078 


Prestonsburg 




• 1799 


11,256 


Frankfort - . 




1794 


21,267 


Hickman ". 






1845 


10,205 


Warsaw . . 






1798 


4,611 


Lancaster . 






1796 


11,138 


Williamstow] 


1 




1820 


12,671 


Mayfield . . 






, 1823 


28,534 


Leitchfield . 






181O 


18,688 


Greensburg 






1792 


ii,;63 


Greenup . . 






1S03 


11,911 


Hawesville . 






1829 


9,214 


Elizabethtow 


n 




1792 


21,304 


Harlan C H. 






. I819 


6,197 


Cynthiana . 






• 1793 


16,914 


Munfordsvill 


; 




I819 


16,439 


Henderson 






1798 


29,536 


New Castle 






1798 


14,164 


Clinton . . 






1821 


11,637 


Madisonville 






1806 


23.505 


McKee . . 






1S5S.; 


8,261 


Louisville . 






1780 


'188,598 


Nicholasville 






1798 


11,248 


Paintsville 






1843 


11,027 


Covington . 






1840 


54.161 


Hindman . 






1884 


5.438 


Barboiirsville 




1799 


13,762 


Hodgensville 




1843 


9.433 


London . . . 




1825. 


13,747 


Louisa . . . 






I82I 


17,701 


Beattvville . 






1870 


6,205 


Hvden . . 






1878 


3.964 


Whitesburg 






1842 


6,920 


Vanceburg . 






1806 


14,803 


Stanford. . 






I7S0 


15.962 


Smithland . 






1798 


9,474 


Russellville . 






1792 


23,812 


Eddyville . . 






1854 


7,628 


Richmond . . 






1785-. 


24.348 


Salyersville . 






IS60 


9,196 


Lebanon . . 






1834 


15,648 


Benton . . . 






1842 


11,287 


Inez 






1870 


4.209 



POPULATION OF THE STATE IN 1890. 



835 



FOR WHOM NAMED. 



Mason George . . . 

McCracken . . . Captain Virgil 

McLean Judge Alney • 

Meade Captain James 

Menifee Richard H. . 

Mercer ... General Hugh 

Metcalfe Governor Thomas 

Monroe President James 

Montgomery . . . General Richard 

Morgan General Daniel 

Muhlenberg . . . General Peter . 

Nelson Governor Thomas {\ 

Nicholas Colonel George 

Ohio Ohio river . . . 

Oldham Colonel William 

Owen Colonel Abraham 

Owsley Judge William 

Pendleton .... Edmond (Va.) 

Perry Com. Oliver Hazard 

Pike General Zebulon M 

Powell Governor Lazarus W 

Pulaski Coiint Pulaski 

Robertson .... Chief Justice George 

Rockcastle . . . River 

Rowan Judge John . . - 

Russell Colonel William . 

Scott Governor Charles 

Shelby Governor Isaac . 

Simpson Captain John . . 

Spencer Captain Spear . . 

Taylor General Zachary . 

Todd Colonel John . . 

Trigg Colonel Stephen . 

Trimble Judge Robert . . 

Union Motto of State seal 

Warren .... General Joseph . 
Washington . . . General George . 

Wayne General Anthony 

Webster Daniel 

Whitley Colonel William . 

Wolfe Nathaniel .... 

Woodford .... General William . 



COUNTY TOWN. 

Maysville . . 

Paducah . . . 

Calhoun . . . 

Brandenburg 

Frenchburg . 

Harrodsburg 

Edmonton . . 

Tompkinsville 

Mt. Sterling . 

West Liberty 

Greenville . . 

Bardstown . . 

Carlisle . . . 

Hartford . . 

Lagrange . . 

Owenton . . 

Bonneville. . 

Falmouth . . 

Hazard . . . 

Pikeville . . . 
, Stanton . . . 

Somerset . . 

Mt, Olivet . . 

Mt. Vernon . 

Morehead . . 

Jamestown . . 

Georgetown . 

Shelbyville . 
. Franklin . . 

Taylorsville . 
, Campbellsville 

Elkton . . . 

Cadiz .... 

Bedford . . . 
, Morganfield . 

Bowling Green 

Springfield . 
, Monticello . 

Dixon .... 



Williamsburg 
Cainpton . . 
\'ersailles . . 



EST.\B- 
LISHED. 

788 

S24 
S54 
823 

869 

7S5 ' 

860 
820 
796 
822 

798 
784. 

799 
798 
S23 
819 

843 
79S 
820 
821 
852 
798 
S67 
810 
856 
825 
792 
792 
819 
S24 
S48 
819 
S20 
S36 
811 
796 
792 
800 
860 
818 
860 
788 



rOPULATION, 

1890. 

20,773 

21,051 

9,887 

9484 
4,666 

15.034 
9,891 
10,989 
12,367 
11,249 

17,955 
16,417 
10,764 
22,946 

6,754 
17,676 

5,975 
16,346 

6,331 

17,378 

4,698 

25,731 

4,684 

9.841 

6,129 

8,136 

16,546 

16,521 

10,878 

6,760 

9,353 
16,814 

13,902 
7,140 
18,229 
30,158 
13,622 
12,852 
17,196 

17,590 

7.180 

12,380 



Indians and Chinese, 102; whites, 1,590,462; colored, 268,071. Total, 1,858,635 

By the census of 1890 the population of Kentucky is 1,858,635. Of 
these 942,758 are males, and 915,877 are females; 1,799,279 are native, 
and 59,356 are foreign born. The males are 26,881 in excess of th^ 
females. The white population number 1,590,462, of whom 59,240 are of 
foreign birth, and 124,304 others are the offspring of foreign parents. The 



836 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



colored population numbered 268,173 ^^ 1890; of whom 268,071 are of 
African descent, a decrease since 1880 of 3,380, To what causes this 
decrease may rightfully be attributed, we have not the information to deter- 
mine. It may be of interest to note in comparison, that Massachusetts has 
a population of 2,238,943, of whom 1,087,709 are males, and 1,157,234 
are females; an excess of 63,525 females; 1,581,806 are native, and 657,- 
137 are foreign born. 



UNITED STATES SENATORS FROM KENTUCKY 



John Brown 

John Edwards . . 

Humpbrej- Marshall . 
John Breckinridge . . 

John Adair 

John Buckner Thruston 

Henry Cla}-. . . . 



John Pope . 
Geo. M. Bibb 



Jesse Bledsoe . . ; 
George Walker . . 
Wm. T. Barry . . 

Isham Talbot . . . 
Martin D. Hardin 

John J. Crittenden 



1792 
1792 

1795 
iSoi 
1805 
1805 
I 1806 
J 1809 
I 1831 
L1849 
. 1807 
|-i8ii 
\1829 

• 1813 
. 1814 

. 1815 
( 1815 
1 1820 
. 1816 

ri8i7 
! 1835 

I '842 

LI855 



to 1805 
to 1795 
to 1801 
to 1805 
to 1806 
to 1809 
to 1807 
to 1811 
to 1842 
to 1852 
to 1813 
to 1814 
to 1835 
to 1815 
to 1815 
to 1816 
to 1819 
to 1825 
to 1817 
to 1819 
to 1841 
to 1848 
to 1861 



William Logan . . 
Richard M. Johnson 
John Rowan . . . 
James T. Morehead 
Joseph R. Underwood 
Thomas Metcalfe . 
David Meriwether 
Archibald Dixon . 
John B. Thompson 
Ivazarus W. Powell 
John C Breckinridge 
Garrett Davis . . . 
James Guthrie . . 
Thos. C. McCreary 
John W. Stevenson 
Willis B. Machen . 
James B. Beck . . 
John S. Williams . 
Jos. C S. Blackburn 
John Griffin Carlisle 
Wm. Lindsa)' . . . 



1819 to 1820 

1820 to 1829 
1825 to 1831 
1841 to 1847 

1847 to 1853 

1848 to 1849 
1852 to 1853 

1852 to 1855 

1853 to 1859 
1859 to 1865 

1861 to 

1S61 to 1872 
1S65 to 1868 
1868 to 187 1 
1871 to 1877 
1873 to 1875 
1877 to 1890 
1879 to 1885 

1 886 to 

1890 to 1893 
1893 to 



REPRESENTATIVES IN UNITED STATES CONGRESS FROM 
KENTUCKY, FROM 1792 TO 1896. 



IN. OUT. 

Adair, John 1831-33 

Adams, George M 1867-75 

Adams, Green / 47 49 

\ 1859-61 

Adams, Silas 1893-95 

Allan, Chilton 1831-37 

Anderson, Lucien 1863-65 

Anderson, Richard C, Jr. . . 1S17-21 

Anderson, Simeon H 1839-40 



IN. OUT. 

Anderson, William C 1859-61 

Andrews, Landaff Watson . . 1839-43 

Arthur, William E 1871-75 

Barry, William T 1810-11 

Beatty, Martin 1833-35 

Beck, James B 1867-75 

Beckner, W. M 1894-95 

Bedinger, George M 1803-07 

Bell, Joshua F 1845-47 



1 



REPRESENTATIVES IN UNITED STATES CONGRESS. 



837 



Berry, Albert S 1893-97 

Blackburu, J. C. S 1875-85 

Boone, A. R ^ 875-79 

Bovd, Linn / ^^35-37 

1 1839-55 

Boyle, John 1803-09 

Breck, Daniel 1849-51 

Breckinridge, James D. . . . 1S21-23 

Breckinridge, John C 1851-55 

Breckinridge, W. C. P 1885-95 

Bristow, Francis M 1859-61 

r 1859-61 
Brown, John Young .... - 1867-69 

'- 1873-75 

Brown, William 1819-23 

Buckner, Aylett 1847-49 

Buckner, Richard A 1823-29 

Bullock, Wingfield 1820-21 

Burnett, Henry C 1855-61 

Butler, William 1839-43 

Caldwell, George Alfred . . * ^^43-45 

I 1849-51 

Caldwell, John W 1877-83 

Calhoun, John 1835-39 

Campbell, John 1837-43 

Campbell, John P 1855-57 

Carlisle, John G 1877-91 

Caruth, Asher G 1887-95 

Casey, Samuel L 1862-63 

Chambers, John (1828-29 

I 1835-39 

Chilton, Thomas f 1827-31 

I 1833-35 

Chrismau, James S 1853-55 

Christie, Henry . 1809-11 

Clardy, John D 1895-97 

Clark, Beverly L 1847-49 

Clark, James f 1813-16 

I 1825-31 

Clark, John B 1875-79 

Clay, Brutus J 1863-65 

!i8ii-i4 
1815-21 
1823-25 

Clay, James B 1857-59 

Clay, James F 1883-85 

Coleman, Nicholas D 1829-31 

Colson, D. G 1895-97 

Cox, LeanderM 1853-57 

Crittenden, John J 1861-63 



IN. OUT. 

Crossland, Edward 1871-75 

Culbertson, Wm. W 1883-85 

Daniel, Henry . . ..... 1827-33 

Davis, Amos 1833-35 

Davis, Garrett 1839-47 

Davis, Thomas T 1797-1803 

Desha, Joseph 1816-19 

Duncan, Garnett 1847-49 

Dunlap, George W 1861-63 

Durham, Milton J 1873-81 

Duvall, William P 1813-15 

Elliott, John M. 1853-59 

Ellis, W. T 1887-95 

Evans, Walter 1895-97 

Ewing, Presley 1853-54 

Fletcher, Thomas 1816-17 

Finley, Frank 1889-91 

Fowler, John 1 797-1807 

f 1835-37 
French, Richard -< 1843-45 

(- 1847-49 

Gaines, John P 1847-49 

Gaither, Nathan 1829-33 

Golladay, Jacobs 1867-70 

Goodnight, I. H 1889-95 

Graves, William J 1835-41 

Green, Willis 1839-45 

Greenup, Christopher .... 1792-97 
Grev, Beujamiu Edwards . . 1851-55 

Grider, Henry | '843-47 

1 1861-66 

Grover, Asa P 1S67-69 

Halsell, John E 1883-87 

r 1815-17 

Hardin, Benjamin < 1819-23 

^ 1833-37 

Harding, Aaron 1861-67 

Harlan, James 1835-39 

Hawes, Albert G 1831-37 

Hawes, Richard 1837-41 

Hawkins, Joseph W 1814-15 

Hendricks, John K 1895-97 

Henry, Robert P 1823-26 

Henry, John F 1826-27 

Hill, Clement S 1853-55 

Hise, Elijah 1866-67 

Hopkins, Samuel 1813-15 

Howard, Benjamin 1807-10 

Hunter, W. G | ^^^^-89 

\ 1895-97 



838 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



IN. OtIT. 

Jackson, James S 1861-62 

Jewett, Joshua H 1S55-59 

Jobnsou, Francis 1821-27 

Johnson, James 1825-26 

Johnson, James L 1849-51 

Johnson, John T 1821-25 

Johnson, Richard M. . . . / 1^07-19 

I 1829-37 

Jones, Thomas L 1867-71 

Kendall, John W 1891-92 

Kendall, W.M n892-93 

1 1895-97 

Kincaid, John 1829-33 

Knott, J. Proctor r 1867-71 

1 1875-83 

Laffoon, Polk 1885-87 

Lecompte, Joseph 1S25-33 

Letcher, Robert P 1823-33 

Lewis, Joseph H 1870-73 

Lewis, John W 1895-97 

Lisle, M.J 1893-94 

Love, James 1833-35 

Lyon, Chittenden 1827-35 

Lyon, Matthew 1803-11 

Mallory, Robert 1859-65 

Marshall, Alexander K. . . . 1855-57 

Marshall, Humphrey . . . (^849-53 

1 1857-59 

Marshall, Thomas A 1831-35 

Marshall, Thomas F 1841-43 

Martin, John P 1845-47 

Mason, John C / ^f 49-53 

1 1857-59 

May, William L 1835-39 

McCrear}-, James B 1885-97 

McDowell, Joseph J 1843-47 

McHatton, Robert 1826-29 

McHenrj^John H 1843-47 

McHenry, Henry D 1871-73 

McKee, Samuel 1809-17 

McKee, Samuel 1865-69 

McKenzie, James A. .... 1875-83 

McLean, Alnev 1^?^^"^'' 

ti8i9-2i 

McLean, Finis Ewing .... 1849-51 

Menifee, Richard H 1837-39 

Menzies, John W 1861-65 

Metcalfe, Thomas 1819-28 

Millikin, Charles W 1873-77 

Montgomery, A. B 1887-95 



IN. OUT. 

Montgomery, Thomas . . . | c,^^^^^ 
Moore, Laban T 1859-61 

Moore, Thomas P -I J^'^~^'^ 

1 1833-35 

Morehead, Charles S 1847-51 

Murray, John L 183S-39 

Ormsby, Stephen ...... 1811-17 

Orr, Alexander D 1792-97 

Owen, W. C 1895-97 

Owsley, Bryan Y 1841-43 

Parsons, E. Y 1875-76 

Paynter, T. H 1889-95 

Peyton, Samuel O / '^^7-49 

1 1857-61 

Phister, E. C 1879-83 

Pope, John 1837-43 

Pope, Patrick H 1833-35 

Preston, William 1853-57 

Pwgli, S. J 1895-97 

Quarles, Tuustall 1817-20 

Randall, William H 1863-67 

Read, William B 1871-75 

Rice, John M 1869-73 

Ritter, Burwell C 1865-67 

Robertson, George 1817-21 

Robertson, Thomas A. . . . 18S3-87 

Rowan, John 1807-09 

Rousseau, Lovell H 1865-67 

Rumsey, Edward 1837-39 

Sanford, Thomas 1S03-07 

Shanklin, George S 1865-67 

Sharp, Solomon P 1813-17 

Simms, William E 1859-61 

Smith, Green Clay 1863-66 

Snuth, John Speed 1821-23 

Southgate, William W. . . . 1837-39 

Speed, Thomas 1817-19 

Sprigg, James C 1841-43 

Standiford, E. D 1873-75 

Stanton, Richard H 1849-55 

Stevenson, John W 1857-61 

c* T TT^ f 1843-4^ 

Stone, James W {1851-53 

Stone, W.J 1885-95 

Sweeney, William N 1869-71 

Swope, Samuel F 1855-57 

Talbott, Albert G 1855-61 

Taul, INIicah 1815-17 

Taulbee, W. P 1885-89 



CHIEF JUSTICES OF KENTUCKY. 



839 



IN. OUT. 

Thomasson, William P. . . . 1843-47 

Thomas, George M 1887-89 

f 1841-43 
Thompsou, John B 1 q ^_ 

Thompson, Philip 1823-25 

Thompsou, Phil B., Jr. ... 1881-85 

Tibbatts, John W 1843-47 

Tompkius, Christopher . . . 1831-35 

Trimble, David 1817-27 

Trimble, Lawrence S 1865-71 

Triplet!, Philip 1839-41 

Trumbo, Andrew 1845-47 

Turner, Oscar 1879-85 

Turner, Thomas 1877-81 

Underwood, Joseph R. . . . 1S35-43 

Underwood, Warner L. • . • 1855-59 

r 1861-65 
Wadsworth, William H. . . < 00 o_ 

\ 1885-87 

Walker, David 1817-20 

Walton, Matthew 1803-07 



TN. OUT. 

Ward, A. Harrj' 1866-67 

Ward, William T 1851-53 

Watterson, Henry 1876-77 

White, Addison . 1851-53 

White, David 1823-25 

White, John 1835-45 

White, John D 1881-85 

f 1823-33 
Wickliffe, Charles A. • • • { 1861-6^ 

Williams, Sherrod 1835-41 

Willis, Albert S 1877-S7 

Wilson, J. H.' 1889-93 

Winchester, Boyd 1869-73 

Woodson, Samuel H 1820-23 

Woolford, Frank L 1883-87 

Yancy, Joel 1827-31 

Yeaman, George H 1862-65 

Young, Bryan R 1845-47 

Young, John D 1873-75 

Yoi;ng, William F 1825-27 



CHIEF JUSTICES OF KENTUCKY. 



Harry Innis 1792 

George Muter 1792 

Thomas Todd 1806 

Felix Grundy 1807 

Ninian Edwards 1808 

George M. Bibb 1809 

John Boyle 1810 

George M. Bibb 1827 

George Robertson 1829 

E. M. Ewing 1843 

Thomas A. Marshall 1847 

James Simpson 1852 

Elijah Hise 1854 

Thomas A. Marshall 1856 

B. Mills Crenshaw 1857 

Zachariah Wheat 1858 

James Simpson i860 

Henry J. Stites 1862 

Alvin Duval 1864 

Joshua F. Bullitt 1865 



William Simpson 1866 

Thomas A. Marshall 1866 

Belvard J. Peters 1868 

Rufus K. Williams 1870 

George Robertson 1871 

William S. Pryor 1872 

Mordecai R. Hardin 1874 

Belvard J. Peters 1876 

W^illiam Lindsay 1878 

William S. Pryor 1880 

M. H. Cofer 1881 

Joseph H. Lewis 18S2 

Thomas F. Hargis 1884 

Thomas H. Hines 1885 

William S. Pryor 1886 

Joseph H. Lewis 1888 

William H. Holt 1890 

Caswell Bennett 1892 

Isaac M. Quigley 1894 

William S. Pryor 1895 



840 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, 



ATTORNEY-GENERALS OF KENTUCKY. 

APPOINTED BV THE GOVERNOR. 



George Nicholas .... June 15, 1792 
William Murray .... Dec. 7, 1792 
John Breckinridge . . . Dec. 19, 1793 

James Blair Nov. 30, 1797 

W. W. Blair . resigned Sept. 13, 1820 

Jos. M. White Oct. 26, 1S20 

Ben Hardin Nov. 27, 1S20 

Solomon P. Sharp . . . June 18, 

1821, 1822, 1824, 1825 



F. W. S. Grayson .... July 25, 1825 
J. W. Denny . . . Dec 21, 

1825, 1826, 1828, 1829, 1831 
Chas. S. Morehead . . Mar. 14, 1832 

Owen G. Gates Dec. 6, 1838 

M. C. Johnson Jan. 17, 1S49 

James Harlan 1849 



EIvECTED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF 1S50. 



James Harlan 185 1 

James Harlan 1S55 

Andrew James 1859 

John M. Harlan 1863 

John Rodman 1867 

John Rodman 1871 



Thomas E. Moss 1875 

P. W. Hardin 1879 

P. W. Hardin 1883 

P. W. Hardin 1887 

William J. Hendrick 1891 



SPEAKERS KENTUCKY HOUSE. 



Robert Breckinridge . . 1792 to 1795 
Edmund Bullock .... 1796 to 1798 
John Breckinridge . . . 1799 to iSoi 

John Adair 1802 to 1S03 

William Logan 1804 to 1S06 

Henry Claj- 1807 

William Logan 1808 to 1809 

John Simpson iSio to 1811 

Joseph H. Hawkins . . 1812 to 1813 

William T. Barry 1S14 

John J. Crittenden . . . 1815 to 1S16 
Joseph C. Breckinridge . 1817 to 181S 

Martin D. Hardin 1819 

George C. Simpson . . . 1820 to 1S21 

Rich. C. Anderson 1822 

George Robertson . . . 1823 and 1S26 

Robert J. Wood 1825 

John Speed Smith 1827 

Tunstall Quarles 1S28 

John J. Crittenden . . . 1829 to 1S32 

Rich. B. New 1833 

Charles A. Wickliflfe 1834 

r 1835-36 
John L. Helm -j 1839-42 

i- 1843 
Robert P. Letcher . . . 1837 to 1S38 



Chas. S. Morehead, 1840, 
Joseph R. Underwood 
Leslie Combs . . . 
James F. Buckner . 
Gwyn Page .... 
Thomas W. Riley . . 
George W. Johnson . 
George Robertson . 
Charles G. Wintersmith 
John B. Huston . . 
Daniel P. White . . 
David Meriwether 
Rich. A. Buckner, Jr 
Harrison Taylor 
John T. Bunch . 
James B. McCreary 
William J. Stone 
Edward Turner 
Joseph M. Bigger 
William C. Owens 

Charles Oflfutt . . 

Ben Johnson . . . 
Harvey Myers . . 
William M. Moore 
A. J. Carroll . . . 



1841 and 1844 

1845 
1S46 
1847 
1848 
1849 
1850 
1851 
1853 
1855 
1857 
1859 
1861 
1863 to 1865 
. . . 1869 
1871 to 1873 
1875 to 1876 
1877 to 1878 
1879 to 18S0 
1881 to 1882 

r 1883-84 
■ t 1885-861 

1887 to 1888 
1889 to 1890 
1891 to 1892 
1893 to 1894 



AMBASSADORS, FOREIGN MINISTERS, ETC. 84I 

AMBASSADORS, FOREIGN MINISTERS, CONSULS, ETC., WHO WERE 

KENTUCKIANS. 

James Shannon, Lexington, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to Mexico, 1794. 

Henry Clay, Lexington, Envoy Extraordinary and INIinister Plenipotentiary 
to Ghent, 1S14. 

Richard C. Anderson, Jr., Louisville, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary to Colombia, 1823. 

Richard C. Anderson, Jr., Louisville, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary to Panama, 1826. 

William Preston, Jefferson count}^ Envo}- Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- 
potentiary to Spain, 1829. 

Thomas P. Moore, Mercer county, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- 
potentiary to Colombia, 1S29. 

Robert R. McAfee, Mercer county. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- 
potentiarj- to Colombia, 1833. 

James Brown, Lexington, Envo}- Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiarj' 
to France, 1823-33. 

George H. Proffitt, Louisville, Euvoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to Brazil, 1843-45. 

Peter Grayson, Bardstowu, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
from Texas to Nova Scotia, 1840. 

Edward A. Hannegan, Maysville, Euvoy Extraordinary' and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary to Russia, 1849. 

Robert P. Letcher, Frankfort, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to Mexico, 1S49. 

William T. Barry, Lexington, Envo}' Extraordinar}' and Minister Pleuipoten- 
tiarj- to Spain, 1835. 

Cassius M. Cla}', Richmond, Euvoy Extraordinary aud Minister Plenipotentiary 
to Russia, 1862-69. 

Thomas Corwin, Bourbon county, Envoy Extraordinarj- aud Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary to Mexico, 1861-64. 

Humphrey Marshall, Louisville, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary to Central America, 1851-52. 

Humphrey Marshall, Louisville, Envo}' Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiar}- to China, 1852-54. 

William Preston, Louisville, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
to Spain, 1858-61. 

John C. Breckinridge, Lexington, Envo}' Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiarj- to Spain, 1855. 

Chas. S. Todd, Shelby count}-. Envoy Extraordinar}- and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to Russia, 1841-45. 

George H. Yeamau, Oweusboro, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary to Denmark, 1865-71. 

Allan A. Burton, Lancaster, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
to Colombia, 1861-66. 

Thomas H. Nelson, Maysville, Envoy Extraordinarj- and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to Chili, 1861-65. 

Thomas H. Nelson, Maysville, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to Mexico, 1869-73. 



842 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

William Cassius Goodloe, Lexington, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- 
potentiary to Belgium, 187S-81. 

Charles W. Buck, Midwaj-, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
to Peru, 1885-S9. 

Charles D.Jacob, Louisville, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
to Colombia, 1885-86. 

Beverly L- Clarke, Simpson county, Minister Resident to Guatemala, 1857. 

Beverly L- Clarke, Simpson county, Minister Resident to Honduras, 1858. 

Thomas H. Clay, Lexington, Minister Resident to Nicaragua, 1862. 

Thomas H. Clay, Lexington, Minister Resident to Honduras, 1863-68. 

Edward A. Turpin, Carrollton, Minister Resident to Venezuela, 1858-61. 

Joseph A. Nunez, Louisville, Minister Resident to Cardenas, Spain, 1882. 

Michael J. Cramer, Covington, Minister Resident to Switzerland, 1881. 

Boj'd Winchester, Louisville, Minister Resident to Switzerland, 1885-86. 

William O. Bradle}', Garrard county (declined). Minister Resident to Corea, 1889. 

Robert B. McAfee, Mercer county, Charge d'AiFaires to New Granada, 1833. 

Robert B. McAfee, Mercer county. Charge d'Affaires to Ecuador, 1836. 

James Semple, Albany, Charge d'Affaires to New Granada, 1837-41. 

James Shannon, Lexington, Charge d'Affaires to Central America, 1832- 

Joseph Eve, Knox count}'. Charge d'Affaires to Texas, 1841. 

Elijah Hise, Logan count}-, Charge d'Affaires to Guatemala, 1848. 

James B. Clay, Lexington, Charge d' Affaires to Portugal, 1849-50. 

John Rowan, Jr., Bardstown, Charge d'Affaires to Two Sicilies, 1848. 

Robert Wicklifife, Jr., Lexington, Charge d'Affaires to Sardinia, 184S-52. 

B. Rowan Hardin, Bardstown, Charge d'Affaires to Panama, 1853. 

Alexander A. McClung, Mason county, Charge d'Affaires to Bolivia, 1849. 

Richard H. Rousseau, Louisville, Charge d'Affaires to Honduras, 1S6S-70. 

E. Rumsey W^ing, Owensboro, Charge d'Affaires to Ecuador, 1869-73. 

Michael J. Cramer, Covington, Charge d'Affaires to Denmark, 1876. 

James T. Pickett, Mason county, Consul General to Vera Cruz, 1853-61. 

George N. Sanders, Carrollton, Consul General to London, . 

Alfred Allen, Breckinridge county. Consul General to China, 1866-68. 

Robert B. J. Twyman, Paducah, Consul General to Vera Cruz, 1857. 

E. Mars Hancock, Maysville, Consul General to Malaga, 1S61-72. 
Charles J. Helm, Newport, Consul General to Havana, 1857-61. 

Theodore D. Edwards, , Consul General to South America, 1861. 

William F. Nast, Owingsville, Consul General to Stuttgart, Wurtemburg, 

1861. 

Alex. R. McKee, Garrard county. Consul General to Panama, New Granada,. 
1861. 

Warner L. Underwood, Bowling Green, Consul General to Scotland, 1862. 

Fortunatus Cosby, Louisville, Consul General to Geneva, Switzerland, 1862.. 

F. W. Behn, Louisville, Consul General to Messina, Italy, 1862. 
Gilderoy W. Griffin, Louisville, Consul General to Apia, 1S70. 

Gilderoy W. Griffin, Louisville, Consul General to Auckland (Great Britain),. 
1879. 

Gilderoy W. Griffin, Louisville, Consul General to Lanthala, F". I., 1878. 

Gilderoy W. Griffin, Louisville, Consul General to Sidney, New South 
Wales, 1884. 

W^arren Green, Louisville, Consul General to Kanagawa, 1885. 

Thomas C. Jones, Owensboro, Consul General to Funchal, Madeira, 1886-89- 



FEDERAL AND CONFEDERATE GENERALS. 



843 



Henry G. Pryor, New Castle, Consul General to Baracoa-de-Cuba, 1887-S9. 

William Bowman, Lewis county, Consul General to China, 18S9. 

Charles W. Erdnian, Louisville, Consul General to Colon, 1891. 

Charles W. Erdman, Louisville, Consul General to Stockholm, Sweden, 1891. 

Charles W. Erdman, Louisville, Consul General to Breslau, Germany, 1892. 

James A. McKeuzie, Minister to Peru. 

Albert S. Willis, Minister to Hawaii. 

James H. Mulligan, Consul General to Samoa. 

Benjamin H. Ridgely, Consul to Geneva. 

Claude M. Thomas, Consul to Marseilles. 

P. B. Spence, Consul to Quebec. 

W. S. Kinkaid, Consul General to Southampton. 

William Masterson, Consul to Aden, Persia. 



FEDERAL GENERALS OF THE CIVIL WAR OF 1S61-65. 



Major-General Cassius M. Clay. 
Major-General William Nelson. 
Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden. 
Major-General Lovell H. Rousseau. 
Major-General Thomas J. Wood. 
Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l Robert 

Anderson. 
Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l W. T. Ward. 
Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l Richard 

W. Johnson. 
Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l Stephen 

G. Burbridge. 
Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l Walter C. 

Whitaker. 



Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l John T. 
Croxton. 

Brig, and Brev. Maj.-Gen'l Eli Long. 

Brigadier-General Jerry T. Boyle. 

Brigadier-General Speed S. Fry. 

Brigadier-General Green Clay Smith. 

Brigadier-General Edward 'H. Hob- 
son. 

Brigadier-General James S. Jackson. 

Brigadier-General T. T. Garrard. 

Brigadier-General Jas. M. Shackel- 
ford. 

Brigadier-General W. P. Sanders. 

Brigadier-General L. P. Watkins. 



CONFEDERATE GENERALS. 



General Albert Sidney Johnston. 
Lieut. -Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. 
Lieut. -Gen. John B. Hood. 
Maj.-Gen. John C. Breckinridge. 
Maj.-Gen. George B. Crittenden. 
Brig.-Gen. John H. Morgan. 
Brig.-Gen. Ben Hardin Helm. 
Brig.-Gen. William Preston. 
Brig.-Gen. Humphrev Marshall. 



Brig.-( 

Brig. 

Brig. 

Brig. 

Brig. 

Brig. 

Brisr. 



-Gen. 

-Gen. 

-Gen. 

-Gen. 

-Gen. 

-Gen. 
„ -Gen. 
Brig.-Gen. 
Brig.-Gen. 



Roger W. Hanson. 
Basil W. Duke. 
Lloyd Tilghman. 
George B. Hodge. 
John S. Williams. 
Thomas H. Taylor. 
Henry B. Lyon. 
R. S. Gano. 
Adam R. Johnson. 



844 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF KENTUCKY 1861-65, 

UNDER WHICH THE STATE WAS ADMITTED INTO THE CONFEDERATE UNION 
DURING THE Civil, WAR. 

Governor — George W. Johnson ; killed at Shiloh, and succeeded by Richard 
Hawes. Secretary of State — Robert McKee. Treasurer — ^John Barnum. 
Auditor — O. Pillsbury. 

MEMBERS OF provisional CONGRESS FROM KENTUCKY AT RICHMOND, VA., 

FEBRUARY, 1862. 

Henry C Burnett, John Thomas, T. L,. Burnett, George W. Ewing, D. P. 
White, Thomas Johnson, Samuel H. Ford, T. B. Monroe, John M. Elliott and 
George B. Hodge. There was no Senate, as yet. 

MEMBERS OF THE REGULAR CONFEDERATE CONGRESS FROM KENTUCKY. 

Senators — Henry C. Burnett and William E. Simmes. Representatives— 
1863— Willis B. Machen, John W. Crockett, Henry E. Read, G. W. Ewing, J. S. 
Chrisman, T. L. Burnett, A. W. Bruce, George B. Hodge, Eli M. Bruce, James W. 
Moore, R. J. Breckinridge, Jr., and John M. Elliott. 

For 1864-65, the same were elected again, except George W. Triplett, H. Mar- 
shall and B. F. Bradley, to the vacancies of Crockett, Hodge and Breckinridge, 
respectively. 



PROMINENT KENTUCKIANS. 

Zachary Taylor, Jefferson county, President United States 1848 

Abraham Lincoln, Larue county. President United States 1861 to 1865 

Jefferson Davis, Christian county. President Confederate States . . 1861 to 1865 

Richard M. Johnson, Scott county, Vice-President United States . 1837 to 1841 

David R. Atchison, Fayette county, Vice-President United States . 1853 to 1855 

Jesse D. Bright, Covington, Vice-President United States 1S55 to 1857 

John C. Breckinridge, Lexington, Vice-President United States . . 1857 to 1861 

John Brown, Frankfort, President United States Senate ...... 1800 to 1804 

John Pope, Bardstown, President United States Senate 1810 to 1811 

riSii to 1814 
Henry Clay, Lexington, Speaker House Representatives < q , ,o_„ 

John White, Richmond, Speaker House Representatives 1841 to 1844 

Linn Boyd, Trigg county, Speaker House Representatives 1851 to 1855 

/•1883 to 1885 
John G. Carlisle, Covington, Speaker House Representatives . . . -j 18S6 to 1887 

i 1888 to 1889 

John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury 1S93 to 

Adlai E. Stevenson, Bloomington, 111., Vice-President of the United States, 
1893, of Christian county, Ky. 



HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND OFFICERS UNITED STATES GOVERN- 
MENT FROM 1792 TO 1892 WHO WERE KENTUCKIANS. 

Henry Clay, Lexington, Secretary of State, 1S25-29. 

George M. Bibb, Louisville, Secretary of the Treasury, 1844-45. 

Thomas Corwiu, Bourbon county, Secretary of the Treasury, 1850-53. 



JUDGES UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. 845 

James Guthrie, Louisville, Secretary of the Treasury, 1853-57. 

Benjamin H. Bristow, Christian county. Secretary of the Treasury, 1874-76. 

Isaac Shelby (declined), Lincoln county, Secretary of War, 1S17. 

John McLean, Mason county, Secretary of War, 1841-45. 

Jefferson Davis, Christian county, Secretary of War, 1853-57. 

Joseph Holt, Louisville, Secretary of War, 1860-61. 

Orville H. Browning, Fayette county. Secretary of the Interior, 1861-65. 

John McLean, Mason county, Postmaster-General United States, 1823-29. 

William T. Barry, Lexington, Postmaster-General United States, 1829-35. 

Amos Kendall, Frankfort, Postmaster-General United States, 1835-41. 

Charles A. Wickliffe, Bardstown, Postmaster-General United States, 1841-45. 

Joseph Holt, Louisville, Postmaster-General United States, 1859-60. 

Montgomery Blair, Frankfort, Postmaster-General United States, 1861-64. 

John Breckinridge, Fayette county, Attornej'-Geueral United States, 1805-06. 

Felix Grundy, Nelson county, Attorney-General United States, 1838-40. 

John J. Crittenden, Frankfort, Attorney-General United States, 1841-50-53. 

James Speed, Louisville, Attorney-General United States, 1864-66. 

Henry Stansbury, Campbell county, Attorney-General United States, 1866-68. 

Zack Montgomery, Bardstown, Assistant Attorney-General United States, 
1885-89. 

George H. Shields, Bardstown, Assistant Attorney-General United States, 
1889-91. 

Major Carey H. Fry, Paymaster-General War Department, 1862-63. 

James H. Spots, Rear Admiral United States Navy, 1881. 

James E. Jouett, Commodore United States Navy, 1883. 

Walter Evans, Christian county. Commissioner Internal Revenue, 1883. 

James Q. Chenoweth, Harrodsburg, First Auditor Treasury, 1885-89. 

Milton J. Durham, Danville, First Controller Treasury, 1885-89. 

John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury, 1893-97. 



JUDGES UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. 

John McLean, Mason county 1829 to 1862 

John Catron, Wayne county 1837 to 1865 

John McKinley, Jefferson county 1837 to 1S52 

Samuel F. Miller, Richmond 1862 

Thomas Todd, Frankfort 

Robert Trimble, Paris 1S26 to 1828 

John M. Harlan, Louisville 1877 to 1892 



KENTUCKIANS GOVERNORS OF OTHER STATES. 

John Boyle (declined), Garrard county, Governor of Illinois Territory, 1809. 
Ninian Edwards, Logan county, Governor of Illinois Territory, 1809-17. 
Ninian Edwards, Logan county. Governor of Illinois State, 1826-30. 
Thomas Carlin, Nelson county, Governor of Illinois State, 1838-42. 
Richard Yates, Warsaw, Governor of Illinois State, 1861-64. 



846 HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 

Samuel Hubbard, Logan county, Governor of Illinois State, . 

John McLean, Mason county, Governor of Illinois State, . 

William L- Ewing, Lexington, Governor of Illinois State, . 

Richard Oglesby, Oldham county. Governor of Illinois State, 1864-66. 

John M. Palmer, Scott county, Governor of Illinois State, 1870-74. 

Shelby M. Cullom, yVayne county. Governor of Illinois State, . 

Benjamin Howard, Fayette county, Governor of Indiana Territory, 1810-13. 

Ratliffe Boone, Mercer county, Governor of Indiana State, 1819-22. 

James Brown Ray, Boone county. Governor Indiana State, 1825-31. 

James Whitcomb, Lexington, Governor Indiana State, 1842-48. 

John Pope, Bardstown, Governor of Arkansas Territory, 1829-35. 

Robert Crittenden, Logan county. Governor of Arkansas Territory, . 

Thomas J. Churchill, Jefferson county. Governor of Arkansas State, 1881-83. 

Joseph M. White, Franklin county. Governor of Florida Territory, 1818-22. 

William P. Duvall, Nelson county, Governor of Florida Territory, 1822-34. 

Richard K. Call, Logan county. Governor of Florida State, 1836-40. 

William Clark, Jefferson county. Governor of Missouri Territory, 1813-21. 

Benjamin Howard, Fayette count}-. Governor of Missouri Territory, 1811-12. 

Daniel Dunklin, Mercer county, Governor of Missouri State, 1832-36. 

Milburn W. Boggs, Fayette county, Governor of Missouri State, 1836-40. 

Claiborn F. Jackson, Fleming county, Governor of Missouri State, 1860-61. 

B. Gratz Brown, Frankfort, Governor of Missouri State, 1S70-74. 

Silas Woodson, Knox count}-. Governor of Missouri State, 1874-78. 

Thomas T. Crittenden, Breckinridge county. Governor of Missouri State, 
1880-84. 

David R. Francis, Madison county, Governor of Missouri State, 1889 — . 

James Birney, Boyle county. Governor of Michigan Territory, . 

Steven T. Mason, Jr., Fayette county. Governor of Michigan State, 1834-40. 

Willis A. Gorman, Flemingsburg, Governor of Minnesota Territory, 1853-57. 

Green Clay Smith, Covington, Governor of Montana Territory, 1865-69. 

William O. Butler (declined), Carrollton, Governor of Nebraska Territorv, 
1854. 

William .\. Richardson, Nicholas county, Governor of Nebraska Territory, 
1857-61. 

David Meriwether, Jefferson county, Governor of New Mexico Territory, 
1853-57- 

Thomas Corwin, Bourbon county. Governor of Ohio State, 1840-42. 

John P. Gaines, Boone county. Governor of Oregon Territory, 1850-53. 

John Floyd, Jefferson county. Governor of Virginia State, 1830-34. 

Henry Dodge, Jefferson county. Governor of Wisconsin State, 1836-4 1-45-4S. 

Sam B. Maxey, Adair county. Governor of Texas, . 

John J. Ireland, Hardin county, Governor of Texas, . 

Preston H. Leslie, Barren county. Governor of Montana Territory, 1885-89. 

Eli H. Murray, Breckinridge county, Governor of Utah Territory, 1883-85. 

Caleb West, Harrison county, Governor of Utah Territory, 1885-89. 

John Chambers, Mason county. Governor of Iowa Territory, 1841-46. 

Jacob O. Phister, Fayette county. Secretary of Iowa Territory, 1841-45. 

James Brown, Lexington, Governor of Louisiana, . 

Robert C. Wickliffe, Bardstown, Governor of Louisiana, 1858-62. 

Richard M. Bishop, Fleming county. Governor of Ohio, 1878. 



MEMBERS OF CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 



847 



KENTUCKIANS U. S. SENATORS FROM OTHER STATES. 

Allan B. Magruder, Lexington, from Louisiana, 181 2-13. 
James Brown, Frankfort, from Louisiana, 1819-24. 
Josiali Stoddard Johnston, Mason county, from Louisiana, 1S24-25. 
Felix Grundy, Nelson county, from Tennessee, 1829-38, 1840. 
Ninian Edwards, Logan county, from Illinois, 1818-24. 
John McKinley, Jeiferson county, from Alabama, 1826-31. 
Edward A. Hannegan, Maysville, from Indiana, 1843-49. 
Lewis F. Linn, Jefferson county, from Missouri, 1833-43. 
John McLean, Logan county, from Illinois, 1824-25, 1829-30. 
John M. Robinson, Scott county, from Illinois, 1830-42. 
Francis P. Blair, Jr., Lexington, from Missouri, 1871-77. 
Jesse D. Bright, Covington, from Indiana, 1845-62. 
Jefferson Davis, Christian county, from Mississippi, 1847-53, 1857-61. 
David R. Atchison, Fayette county, from Missouri, 1845-55. 
B. Gratz Brown, Frankfort, from Missouri, 1860-67. 
Thomas Corwin, Bourbon county, from Ohio, 1845-50. 
H. P. Haun, Scott county, from California, 1859-60. 
Henry S. Lane, Bath county, from Indiana, 1861-67. 
James Semple, Albany, from Illinois, 1843-47. 
Thomas B. Read, Mercer county, from Mississippi, 1826-27-29. 
Robert \V. Johnson, Scott county, from Arkansas, 1853-61. 
Oovernor Vest, Frankfort, from Missouri. 
Richard Call, Logan county, from Florida. 
Richard Oglesby, Oldham county, from Illinois. 
Shelby M. Cullom, Wayne county, from Illinois. 
Henry Dodge, Jefferson county, from Wisconsin, 1S49-57. 
Solomon U. Downes, from Louisiana, 1847-53. 
John Norvell, Lexington, from Michigan, 1835-41. 
James Whitcomb, Lexington, from Indiana, 1849-52. 
Richard Yates, Warsaw, from Illinois, 1865-71. 



MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1890-1. 



Adair — J. F. Montgomery. 
Allen— W. J. McElroy. 
Anderson — Thos. H. Hanks. 
Ballard and Carlisle — ^W. J. Edrington. 
Barren — S. H. Boles. 
Bath and Rowan— L. V. Williams. 
Boone — L- W. Lassing. 
Bourbon— C. M. Clay, Jr. 
Boyd and Lawrence — Laban T. Moore. 
Boyle — R. P. Jacobs. 
Bracken— W. W. Field. 
Breathitt, Morgan and Magoffin— J. E. 
Ouicksall. 



Breckinridge— Will Miller. 

Bullitt and Spencer— Frank P. Straus. 

Butler and Edmonson— Jas. M. Forgy. 

Caldwell— C. T. Allen. 

Calloway— W. W. Ayres. 

Campbell— George Washington, Geo. 

Truesdell. 
Carroll— H. Cox. 

Carter and Elliott— Robert Parsons. 
Casey and Russell -John L. Phelps. 
Christian- Dr. J. D. Clardy. 
Clark— W. M. Beckner. 
Clay,Jacksou and Owsley— S. P. Hogg. 



S48 



HISTORY OF KENTUCKY. 



Clinton and Cumberland — J. A. Brents. 

Covington — William Goebel, W. H. 
Mackoy. 

Crittenden and Livingston — T. J. 
Nuun. 

Daviess — Thomas S. Pettit, Benj. Birk- 
head. 

Estill and Lee— J. F. West. 

Fayette — P. P. Johnston, Charles J. 
Brouston. 

Fleming — W. J. Heudrick. 

Floyd, Letcher and Knott— F. A. Hop- 
kins. 

Franklin — Thomas H. Hi lies. 

Fulton and Hickman — ^J. M. Brummal. 

Gallatin — ^J. S. Brown. 

Garrard — Wm. Berkele. 

Grant— R. H. O'Hara. 

Graves — T. J. Elmore. 

Grayson — Charles Durbin. 

Green and Taylor^. M. Wood. 

Greenup — B. F. Bennett. 

Hancock — G. D. Chambers. 

Hardin — Harvey H. Smith. 

Harlan, Perry, Bell and Leslie — ^J. G. 
Forrester. 

Harrison — Dr. W. H. Martin. 

Hart— S. B. Buckner. 

Henderson — Dr. H. H. Farmer. 

Henry^ohn D. Carroll. 

Hopkins — H. R. Bourland. 

Jefferson — Sam E- English. 

Jessamine— Dr. J. W. Holloway. 

Kenton— Dudley E. Glenn. 

Knox and Whitley — Nath'n Buchanan. 

Larue — I. W. Twynian. 

Laurel and Rockcastle— W. R. Ram- 
sey. 

Lewis— S. J. Pugh. 

Lincoln— W. H. Miller. 

Logan— J. Guthrie Coke. 



Louisville— ist Dist., Zack Phelps. ■* 

2d Dist., Dr. M. K. Allen. 

3d Dist,, Morris Sachs. 

4th Dist., B. H. Young. 

5th Dist., E.J. McDermott. 

6th Dist., E. E. Kirwin. 

7th Dist., J. T. Funk. 
Madison — Curtis F. Burnam. 
Marion — ^J. Proctor Knott. 
Marshall and Lyon — Dr. Samuel Gra- 
ham. 
Mason — Emery Whitaker. 
McCrackeu— W. G. Bullitt. 
McLean — Jep. C. Johnson. 
Meade— J. F. Woolfolk. 
Mercer — Dr. J. H. Moore. 
Metcalfe and Monroe — W. S. Smith. 
Montgomery, Powell, Wolfe and Men- 
ifee — G. B. Swango. 
Muhlenberg — Dr. A. D. James. 
Nelson— J. W. Muir. 
Nicholas and Robertson — Hanson 

Kennedy. 
Ohio — Henry D. McHenry. 
Oldham and Trimble— S. E. DeHaven. 
Owen — Joseph Blackwell. 
Pendleton — Leslie T. Applegate. 
Pike, Martin and Johnson — A. J. Aux- 

ier. 
Pulaski— John S. May. 
Scott— J. F. Askew. 
Shelby— J. C. Beckham. 
Simpson — Geo. C. Harris. 
Todd— H. G. Petrie. 
Trigg — W. W. Lewis. 
Union — I. A. Spalding. 
Warren — Robt. Rodes, D. C. Amos. 
Washington — ^J. W. Lewis. 
Wayne — J. S. Hines. 
Webster— W. F. Doris. 
Woodford — James Blackburn. 



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